Food Drive This Evening

I’ll be at the FOX12 Cares Food Drive from 4-6pm this evening and again 8-11pm, feel free to stop by and say hello.  Maybe even briefly chat weather!  Location: Beaverton Fred Meyer right along Highway 217 & Beaverton/Hillsdale Hwy.

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

A Really Weird Day

I have had a very strange day today it included:  A school visit in Canby mid-morning, giving a few pencils to the ladies in the vacuum cleaner store around 11:30, finding out my daughter broke her arm at school and was at the emergency room, spent 3 hours at hospital and then sent her off to surgery around 3pm., driving back home to pick up my son in the Gorge at 4pm, finding out a Tsunami Advisory was up for the Coast around 5pm, then back to work at 7pm to participate in Operation Tsunami Craziness.  At least it’ll all end at 10:50pm!  Either way I feel I’m not paying much attention to the weather.  So I don’t have any thoughts, although I heard thunder around 4pm and had some hail, so I’m happy about that.

P.S.  My daughter is recovering now with a cast.

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

Chilly Air Moving In

Whew, I see the entire metro area is in the low 50s at this hour.  Time to turn on the heat, or at least it will be by morning.  Hard to believe that just yesterday I was standing on my deck watching the sunset in a lot less clothing (but I did have some on!) with a warm easterly wind blowing.  That’s all history now.  As expected the total precipitation has been pathetic so far.  In this setup the main action should be in the convective showers behind the cold front tomorrow.  Even then we won’t get huge amounts of rainfall.

I’m still a bit under the weather tonight;  funny how I felt better over the weekend then feel worse after coming back to work.  What’s up with that???

Moving on…after the cool air departs Wednesday, we get into a slightly warmer westerly flow Thursday and Friday.  Then another cold trough digs down directly over us Saturday.  This is a pattern that would give us waves of cold air and chances for snow if it was in mid-winter.  But it’s not, so  just another cooldown for Saturday.  After that ridging builds in for warmer weather Sunday and beyond.

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

Fall REALLY Arrives Next Week

I’ve shown this image in previous posts;  it’s the 6-10 day forecast 500mb heights and deviation from average.  You can see the negative anomaly centered over the northern Rockies.  This is quite a change from what we’ve seen the past few weeks.  Basically the Western USA is going to get a sudden cool down next week.  We can turn off the sprinklers and garden soaker hoses.  That’s a combination of much cooler temps plus off/on rain beginning Monday or Monday night.  You definitely need to enjoy the sunshine this weekend.  Sunday looks perfect with strong offshore flow (gorge east wind).  WRF-GFS cross section shows 35-40 kt. wind well above the surface Sunday PM.

I’ve been a bit lazy blogging the last few nights…under the weather, especially tonight.  Feels like some laryngitis approaching…

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

The Disappearing Post

I just spent a bunch of time putting together a post and then it all disappeared, so now I’m cranky and headed home instead.  Looks chilly with some real Fall weather next Tuesday/Wednesday, otherwise warm and sunny Friday-Monday.   Marine layer might be surprisingly deep tomorrow, but I’ll stick with the 76 forecast high…could easily be 72 instead!

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

Even More Smoke

Tumblebug and Boze fires are sure puking out the smoke this evening!...aiming for the Metro Area.

Oh, this is exciting…something only you folks can appreciate.  I just glanced at our temp here at the station.  At 9:20pm it’s 81 degrees along Hwy. 26 in Beaverton.  But just 5 air miles west at HIO it’s 61 at 9pm!  So 20 degrees in 5 miles!  Ahh, the glory of fall inversions!

But we can top that.  I see Garry Kinney in Vernonia wins the Blue Ribbon Award for Diurnal Temp Range (I made that up) this year.  He had a low 0f 38 this morning and hit 92 this afternoon.  That would be a 54 degree temp range.

To be honest, I was sure disappointed in the low 90s we saw today.  Especially since we were well-mixed, but the east wind died down quite a bit away from the Gorge during peak heating time.  And to think that Tillamook was able to beat us in these conditions!!!  Well, good for Ben Randall (a regular contributor here).  After all, they have to put up with that 65 degree muck most of each summer…too gloomy for my tastes.  Speaking of that, opinions about Monday and Tuesday’s weather seem to be quite varied.  Some are tired of hot temps, but others seem to absolutely love the unusually warm and breezy evenings/mornings/nights we just had.  Sure, the 40s are refreshing this time of year, but you have to admit last night in the windy spots it sure felt like we were in the tropics.  I am in the 2nd group since I know cool and frosty nights are just around the corner.  Really, two weeks from now we could have several days with highs only in the 50s!

The wind was a bit stronger than I expected the first half of the day.  Corbett hit 52, Skamania: 47, Gresham: 44, and Troutdale: 38 mph.  That’s more like what we would expect with an early November east wind.  Now the pressure gradient has settle down to around 4 millibars PDX-DLS.  It should remain that way overnight and then go flat by mid-afternoon tomorrow at the latest.  It’ll be a strong westerly gradient by sometime tomorrow night when we get a marine push westside.  Speaking of that, tomorrow’s temp forecast is tough.  A weak push late in the day plus a loss of easterly downslope flow shoudl keep us in the 80s.  I’m thinkin 85-88 at PDX.

The general pattern of warm and dry weather continues through Monday, but I see the GFS has been trending much colder and a bit wet in the Monday Night to Tuesday period.  In fact the 00z GFS has a 535 thickness over us Tuesday AM.  That would produce a dusting of snow down to Gov’t Camp possibly.  Definitely a sign of Fall there.

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen

Hot & Windy

Check out the fires exploding across SW Oregon. Medford's 5pm relative humidity was 5%!

A fun weather day today!  A start with all the windows closed and the heat cranking, but mid-morning the windows are open and the wind is blowing, and then by late afternoon it’s a very warm wind and leaves/branches are flying all over the place in the metro area. 

Good times at the beach too…a bunch of KPTV employees had plans to visit the beach early this week and I told them GO!  The weather didn’t disappoint;  90 at Newport, 88 at Tillamook, 93 at North Bend!  That only happens once or twice a year at best. 

Obviously back here in the metro area we were held back by the “cooler” air coming through the Gorge.  The Dalles was 82 today.  The forecast tomorrow is 90 or so.  So keep in mind that the airmass itself warms a few degrees tomorrow, up to +24 deg C at 850mb, PLUS, the low level air coming in through the Gorge should warm 8-10 degrees.  That’s why I kept 94 in the forecast for tomorrow, instead of panicking and saying it would only hit 89 or 90.  At the very least, we’ll finally get that 90 degree day to push us over the yearly record of 23 days that is currently tied.  Along those lines, I think tomorrow will PROBABLY be the last 90 degree day of the year.  Yes, I know, it can still hit 90 in early October, but it gets tougher to do with such long nights and weak sun at the end of September.

As for wind, I see the gradient is back up over 6 millibars again; very healthy for late September.  Peak gusts were in the 40-50 mph range out in the western Gorge, and 30-40 mph in the eastern metro area today and should stay that way through tomorrow morning.   We don’t totally lose the easterly wind until early Wednesday morning though.  We actually get a good onshore push Wednesday afternoon/night, so with low clouds Thursday morning, we’ll have a tough time getting much above 70-75 that day.

September is going to end dry and warm…more ridging for the last few days of the month…enjoy!  There are plenty of storm-tracking days waiting for us November through February…hopefully.

Chief Meteorologist – Mark Nelsen