There’s some good news in the weekend forecast…tomorrow looks great with lots of sunshine from Eugene north west of the Cascades. That includes the ocean beaches too. Sunday looks a bit cloudier, with low clouds early, then increasing high-level clouds in the afternoon. But a DRY weekend. There is a system offshore right now that’s going to swirl down through the southern half of Oregon tomorrow. So Central/Eastern Oregon will be much cloudier tomorrow with a chance for a shower. You can even see some afternoon convective showers popping up over the Cascades too. Keep that in mind if you’re hiking up there…an afternoon shower is likely. Our model shows the situation around 1pm Saturday, click on it for a better view. 
What I’m excited about is the likelihood for rain Monday. It appears that we may actually have a rainy day as a chilly system dives in over us out of the Gulf of Alaska. My son, who returns to school Monday, suggested that it’s excellent because he doesn’t want to be in school when it’s sunny. For the hard-core weather folks: Notice the path of the system as it dives in on the 500mb charts, plus a nice surface low that curls down the Coast. Reminds me of those La Nina winters where surface lows come down at us from the northwest (low snow level)…a sign of things to come? That was the pattern for much of winter 2007-2008.
Well, that aside, with decent dynamics and moisture, we could see .25″ or so even in the driest parts of the Metro. The WRF-GFS shows .50-1.00″ up on the west slope of the Cascades. Either way it’s going to be the first “settling of the dust” since the first few days of July. Along with that it should put a huge damper on firest burning in the mountains. The View Lakes Complex around Olallie Lake jumped to 5,000 acres the last couple of days. Probably 45 and rainy up there Monday! Beyond that it’s back to warm and dry Tuesday and beyond.
I’ll be busy attempting to get a roof on my big summer project, or if we get to late Sunday evening…a nice blue “Whiskey-Tango” tarp.
Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen
0.01″ at my place which is the first measurable rain since July 2nd. Funny I thought this month my have tied for my driest month ever at a trace, but nope! Besides a trace in July of 2003, my next driest month was 0.01″ in August of 1998.
August 1998 was weird. It was totally dry for everyone except in Salmon Creek, where I was living at the time. On the 20th of the month we had a gigantic thunderstorm form right over my neighborhood and just drenchus. Picked up about 0.55″ of rain in 15 minutes with a ton of lightning and hail.
High 63
Low 51
Rainfall 0.69″ (assuming none between now & midnight)
Who in this blog has got nilch in their rain-gauges like me?
Nothing here (NE Portland)
It rained here lightly at times and I’m sure you have some too.
I had a heavy shower this AM, woke me up, was quite surprised at the reports of less rain up here.
Unless something happens tonight, OR-CC-25 will be reporting “T” tomorrow morning. There was definetly precip, but not above the magic 0.01″
The San Juans were beautiful this weekend. An amazing lack of wind too. The fishing boats were out in full force as I guess there is a record sockeye running coming out of the Frasier River. A nice show of orcas swimming by too. It is interesting that San Juan Island (Friday Harbor) gets pretty good weather and is relatively dry compared to Seattle. The Olympics are the rain shadow in force there. The area this time of year looks very similar to the California coast line, all rocky and bone dry.
These record fish runs are confuddeling the anthropogenic ideas.
Victoria and Vancouver Island seem to have such a different climate from Seattle. I guess that is why the Spanish and British explorers wintered there.
Sure is nice up there! All year long compared to here.
Yah, I have great memories of the San Juans. The Olympic rain shadow turns them into into a magic land
i lived in oak Harbor for a while, that place was a wind lovers dream, even have pics somewhere down on the rocky saltwater beach in the snow thanks to the Frasier river valley winds. always foggy, always windy, always cool, and always beautiful.
Since it is so boring I found something remotely interesting. I guess…
Water Vapor Image
Decent system moving through the northern Gulf of Alaska. Good darkening evident.
NOAA Northeast Pacific AMSU PWAT
A nice plume of 1.50″ to over 2″ resides along the frontal boundary straddling 50 N, 135 W westward to near the date-line. Depending on how much energy manages to make it around the ridge it could be a bit wet Tuesday-Wednesday.
It isn’t all that boring Rob. Hurricane Earl is roaming about, big boomers in the high plains, and a volcano is acting up in Indonesia! Hahaah!
So, my wife said Mark called for .25 inches of rain today. This morning, I counted 25 raindrops on the windshield. I told her she must have heard it wrong.
Amazing that he could get the raindrop count spot on!
He mentioned 0.25″ above, even in the driest parts of the metro.
That is why I read Mark’s weather blog.
He gets it Right down to the Last Drop.
OH MY GOODNESS I GOT 0.00 INCHES OF RAIN!
The entire driveway is W-E-T! Wet in August? NO WAY!
I can’t believe my eyes.
been mostly sunny in longview all day, a few puffy clouds. around 70 right now, very very pleasant outside. funny how 70 and sun is much nicer feeling than 70 and cloudy.
70 degrees and totally sunny now. I love it when a forecast is blown like this.
Oddly enough the mid and south valley got the rain this time. Over .50 at my house.
Bend’s KTVZ.com has pictures of snow and a snow plow on Century Drive near Mt. Bachelor this morning. Nothing like some August snow!!
Here is a good multi-camera page for Hoodoo Ski Bowl, the very top had a trace of snow earlier today.
http://www.callatg.com/~nsps/weather4.htm
Hope I didn’t hex some sort of winter disaster from my previous comment below! 😕
Currently 62°F and it’s raining very lightly – and the sun is shining on the trees. . . I sure missed the rain. . .
Might need to crank up the old fireplace tonight! (yay!)
I missed using the fireplace too!
Wood heat is our main source of heat and we lit the fire last night.
It sure felt good.
Once in a while today, I get a peek of our mountain through the clouds and I think it might have a dusting of fresh snow.
Beautiful fall day here. A few drops of rain but mostly suns and clouds.
We need the late August rains to usher out the summer and welcome the Indian summer.
I love fall.
Ended up with about .55 in. No I gotta get out the slug bait to protect what is left of our garden after the deer broke thru the fence last weekend while we were gone! BTW, don’t let anybody tell you deer don’t like hot peppers!
…or maple trees, I feel your pain! I bought deer netting this year, and so far, so good. But last year I had sooooo many tomatoes that I actually fed the deer the ones that weren’t perfect, this year they haven’t even bothered us. Our tomatoes didn’t even catch their attention.
We did netting at first but it only worked for a year and then started falling apart. Now we have chicken wire. Only had one big buck rip thru it!
I haven’t grown anything yet that the deer wouldn’t eat. Chicken wire works for me.
I use two different things that have kept all deer out.
1. That good quality plastic deer fencing…it’s either 7′ or 8′. You can almost see through it so it doesn’t look too bad.
2. Regular 4′ high fence with a wood 4×4 post every ten feet. At the top of the post (7′) I run 2x4x10′ treated board to the next post. Deer will not jump THROUGH something, so it’s open from 4-7′ (kids can crawl over), but the deer won’t jump through that. Makes a nice edge to the garden.
No deer issues the last 2-3 summers now. But gates have to always be closed!
I had no problems with the 8′ chicken wire. Except once when we left a gate open and a big buck was corralled. My wife tried to herd him back out the gate. He decided to just bust through the fence!
Lately we had a breach near some apple trees and once they pushed thru the word got out!! Fixed now. I hope.
1230pm rainfall totals across Western Oregon
08-30-2010
I fit in with the Corvallis figure. I received 0.69″ so far today. Currently partly sunny and 62°.
Timmy_Supercell (Hillsboro)
Posted on December 18, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Good morning folks… Woke up to about 65.78 inches of outside and currently -14.9F with a dew point of -40F. Winds from the north howling at 26 mph with frequent gusts at 39mph. What a doozey 🙂
make that 65.78 inches of “snow”. I need to fix my typos.
I was awakened at 9am to the pitter-patter of raindrops on my roof this morning. It only lasted about 15 minutes or so, and I still haven’t added anything measurable. My dry stretch may continue at least one more day?
Whopping 57.0F so far here in the Hilltops of SCAP.
Definately rain as there are drops on the deck and wet ground but can’t say I actually saw it rain.
A roller coaster of temps the next several days..
http://wxweb.meteostar.com/sample/sample.shtml?text=KPDX
62°…Still no measureable rain here.
That’s it?!?!? All this work up for a few lousy hundredths of an inch? There must be more, maybe some sun breaks and steady hail showers this afternoon? I wrapped my tomato garden in plastic for this??? Oh well, I’m sure the cold nights ahead will be the benefactor for all my efforts. If it’s going to be only 50 on labor day, I’m sure the (tor-madoes) will need the life support to have any chance of naturally ripening.
This would be such a typical set up for a dissapointing winter storm were it in January. All of the moisture setting up to our south. Very La nina like.
So maybe I will get all the snow this time? 🙂
All of the moisture going to our south is actually an El Nino halmark…
the moisture actually originated to our north, not our south. But that aside, the main trough of moisture pushed south from the north. Very typical of what we might experience in winter conditions. Ie…it’s 3 days out, they are forecasting a weak system to push out of the gulf of Alaska, and WHAM! East winds keep us around 1-2″ of snow while Salem and Eugene get 8-12″. I hope this isn’t a precurser.
Jesse is correct. All of the moisture going south is not a typical La Nina pattern…
64 degrees
Mark I think you hit it right on the head.This system does look La Nina like. It seems all summer long, even back to April when El-Nino died most of our weather has been coming at us from the Northwest. All of those pesky ull’s have been dropping down on us from the Northwest. Assuming this pattern doesn’t change soon those systems will be getting a lot colder. Skiing at Timberline by Halloween? SLE at 10:45 AM Mostly Sunny and 56 degrees.
It seems to me to be a very quick transition from a Nino to a Nina. Summer usually presents a typical cycle of hot stretches, (90+) for a week to 10 days at a time. Not this year. Only goes to show you, there really never IS a typical year. That’s just some fuzzy memory.
I hope the current trend beats the fall/winter of -08/09. More snow-more cold!
Rain just quit and getting sun breaks. Received 0.69″ in about six hours, not too shabby for any time of the year.
06Z GFS at KTTD is CRAZY!!
94 degrees this friday and a high of 50 on labor day.
Say What???
Based on satellite imagery, heavy rain is in the Eugene area and nice clearing is moving in from the Northwest in PDX. Might be more sun than expected today in the north valley.
0.57″ so far today. Looks like plenty more for the next hour or two.
Still raining here. About a half in. so far.
0.62″ at SW0825 Sweet Home is the highest total so far.
Meanwhile just a trace a Aurora and nothing in Troutdale.
0.03″ fell here between 6-8am
56° with just a trace of rain.
rain scented morning
thunderless moisture returns
nice blaze dampening
Hillsboro’s dry streak ended at 9:00pm last night when .01″ was recorded at the airport. The streak of a trace or less lasted 57 days from July 3rd to August 28th. That is the 5th longest streak since records began in late 1929.
HILLSBORO / KHIO TRACE OR LESS RAINFALL
STREAKS
1930 – Present
Rank-Year – Days – Dates
1 – 1967 – 74 – (June 24 – Sept 5)
2 – 1969 – 70 – (July 5 – Sept 12)
3 – 1931 – 66 – (June 30 – Sept 5)
4 – 1958 – 63 – (July 8 – Sept 8)
5 – 2010 – 57 – (July 3 – Aug 28)
July 8 through Sept 8 – wordpress through in an emoticon.
Looks like rainfall Portland north is done for now…
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?rtx_n0r+/2h/
.20 this morning so far. There goes the dust.
Raining! 0.18″ so far.
Looks like clearing skies already moving in from the north…trace of rain here…looks like Salem and Corvallis are getting a real good soaking.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?ir4km_enhanced+12
08-29-2010 BG Lake Stats
High: 65.2 Low: 46.3 Precip: Trace