Latest Cold Weather Thoughts

That’s a nice little cold front eh?  Let the La Nina fun begin tonight!  A surprisingly strong westerly wind surge behind the cold front is working down into the Metro area right now.  Plus we have some sort of weather action through the next 7 days.

It’s been ANOTHER 24 hours of good old-fashioned model riding.   and staring at cross-sections for the next 10 days.  What’s changed this time around?  Once again…very little.  Some highlights I’ve noticed:

1.  Not a ton of moisture beyond Wednesday night’s cold front.  I see the 00z GFS has only .18″ at PDX Friday through Sunday.

2.  The chance of any modified arctic air seeping into our region is just about gone (except on the new 00z GFS of course). 

3.  A general warmup starts Monday (7 days away) and continues the rest of Thanksgiving Week.

4.  The 00z GFS is definitely cold enough for snow in the lowlands beginning Sunday night, but no other model has shown that.  So I’m ignoring it for now.  Otherwise it just isn’t cold enough to get snow much below 2,000′ Thursday-Sunday.  Note the 00z NAM has a freezing level around 2,800′ Friday morning.  Remember that’s when models said it was going to be “close to sea-level” about 3 days ago.

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen

Gusty Cold Front Moving Through…

Sure the wind has been gusty from the south the last few hours, but now we’re getting lots of reports of strong west wind just behind the cold front.  Vernonia, Timber, Longview, Rainier.  And that’s moving towards the metro area…south be here in the next 90 minutes.  Hang on!  A gusty west wind is rare here, so it should be fun…maybe gusts 30-35 mph.

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen