10pm Wednesday…
Whew! That was exciting wasn’t it? Between 5-8pm thunderstorms moved through the metro area. Heaviest rain was right up along the east side of I-205 in east metro.
Officially PDX only saw 0.10″, but some of you went right on over the one inch mark
One video we’ve been showing on FOX12 shows hail accumulating many inches deep along the side of a house as well. By the way, earlier today a severe thunderstorm covered Hwy 26 with hail near Zigzag
Back to the metro area…the line of thunderstorms pushed a large swath of “outflow” wind north and east ahead of it. Check out the peak gusts! Similar to a weak winter windstorm event
This put 26,000 PGE customers out of power (including my home) and 5,000 in Clark county. That’s one of the largest numbers I’ve seen for thunderstorms in the metro area. The combo of lightning + wind likely led to the large number of outages. Many thunderstorm events in our area don’t include the strong wind.
Note there was no Severe Thunderstorm Warning as the storms rolled through. That’s because there is a specific definition:
- Large hail, 1″ (quarter size) or larger
- Damaging wind gusts 58+ mph
So yes, a very exciting thunderstorm but it wasn’t technically considered “severe”.
Looking ahead, tomorrow we’ll be under the influence of the upper-level low offshore. That means another round of showers/thunderstorms. But they shouldn’t be as “organized”. By that I mean they should be more like typical spring thunderstorms with just a few rumbles or flashes of lightning with the showers. Strong wind is far less likely.
Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
I noticed the blue skies were a bit hazy today especially late in the day. Looks like we’re getting smoke from the many forest fires in Alaska..
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Alaska-smoke-Cliff-Mass-wildfire-Pacific-Northwest-14070154.php
From Estonia, with love…
You’re welcome.
So both you and Mark are out of town. That explains the tornado!
A few light showers here this morning. I doubt we’ll see anything near the amount we had yesterday- that was a rainfall we really needed.
That was a fun couple of days. Lost power for 6 hours on Wednesday evening. June will end up well above average temperature-wise and well below normal precipitation-wise. The end of next week has the potential to be pretty toasty.
Here in Lake Grove we had three major torrential downpours yesterday, just volumes of pounding rain, with extended bits of “normal” rain in between. Similar rain pattern Wed afternoon. Then I look at PDX and see 1/10th of an inch for Wed when everyone just about everywhere else had around 1”. So much for out official total when we finalize the June numbers.
I guess, as you say, average temps will end up warmer than normal for the month, but once we exited those two hellish days in early June, the weather has been, dare I say, pleasant, especially for longer bike rides.
Doug
No doubt, Doug. Most areas saw far more rain than PDX, but that’s the official recording station and all averages and records are based off of it (at least in recent history). So, only fair to compare PDX to PDX.
Overall, June has been pleasant. 3-4 warm to hot days. If our Julys and Augusts could be similar, it would be a beautiful thing. Anyone want to guess thr number of 90 degree days for this summer? Including the two we already had, I will go with 20 even.
What a fun weather day! It was down to 57 degrees earlier right after the rain quit dumping.
You know it’s soaked out there when you see no squirrels about my neighborhood. The ground is too wet for them to consider it worth burying any food due to rotting from the moisture. I live close to some parks that sport a lot of the little guys. The ground is even soggy dare I say
We missed the thunder here- well, I heard it faintly off to the east about 9pm last night. However, a good approximate 2.5 hours of rain this morning giving me 0.70 inches. That drops this June from No.1 driest to No.9. And, with a few more showers to come, it could end up at No.10.
Rained much of the night and up until 11:30 or so in Bellingham.
Well it was severe in east Clark County! I happened to be shopping when it started raining at 530….tried to leave the store at 630 and I literally got shower dripping wet loading my car. Wind, rain, HUGE claps of thunder and massive lightning everywhere! As I drove down Mill Plain by Walmart the water got so deep IT WAS REACHING OVER MY HOOD ….. for 1/2 mile straight. I was terrified! Cars were literally FLOATING DOWN THE STREET!!!! Cops showed up and as I made it thru to water that was only up to the tops of my tires a cop stopped me and said WHAT A CLUSTER HUH? LoL then he said to turn right and try to make it to 1st street which I did…… still soaking wet in my car which was steaming up because I turned my seat heater on…..I was freezing. And can we get a round of applause for my Beast of a Car that made it through? An Acura TL 2017!!!!!!!! There were suvs that didn’t make it thru!! What a day!!! The storm also wiped out ALL the plants on my balconies!!!!! Still love ya, Mother Nature!!
Glad you made it thru. It’s you that was careful which is why your car made it and the others didn’t. We’ve seen people in snowstorms do stupid stuff. We had a SUV for a long time and went thru some severe snow but Dad,Mom and I lived in snow country and he knew how to handle it.
During the 2014 snowstorm we went to Roth’s the next day and we were the only ones besides pickup trucks out and Roth’s somehow had their parking lot cleared right away. You never go out right when the snow stops as that’s when the stupid people come out. The next day the accidents are all cleaned up.
So glad to see the 80’s disappear from the 7-day forecast!
Better not be replaced with 110F!
Weird how much you seem to hate summery weather!
AACK! The 80’s are back!! 😦
The storm hit hard near Barton Park, with extreme wind, heavy rain and many flashes of lighting and thunder. I took a drive during the storm as my dog stays calmer riding in the truck vs. staying in the house. Two roads were blocked with downed trees and powerlines which were still smoking and arcing. These were Bakers Ferry at Springwater and also on the hill of Gerber Road. Pretty wild stuff, could only drive 30 with the wipers on high. Also it was dark as night and eerie with all cars needing their headlights.
That was the most intense thunderstorm I’ve seen in the Portland area in a long time. I made a video of the storm coming my way. The winds were just crazy!! Let’s hope for some good action tomorrow 🙂
Lots of sun and no rain today in Bellingham, where I’m house-shopping.
Gotta love the HRRR…nailed it
Some great season defining events this year in the South Valley. At least Portland also got in on the thunderstorm action yesterday–unlike the snowstorms in February.