5 days of cold showers deliver! Biggest snow of winter in Coast Range, plus snowy spots in lowlands

8pm Monday…

We’ve just experienced the 2nd snowiest period of winter in the Pacific Northwest, both in the mountains and for some in the lowlands/foothills. A few thoughts:

1) Officially Portland recorded a trace of snow with this event (snow showers Saturday morning). This means that most likely the final winter snow total will remain at 1.6″. That was a combo of snow + ice pellets that fell on Saturday January 13th.

2) Some lowland/coastal spots picked up snow at times Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday mornings. All very light amounts; I don’t believe I have seen a report of more than 3″ any lower than 400′ elevation. That said, quite a few spots picked up a trace to 1″ at elevations near sea-level (Tillamook) or the valley floor along I-5 at least once.

3) Most spots at/above 1,000′ have seen repeated light snowfall each night/morning. At that elevation and above there has been at least some snow on the ground most areas since Friday morning. This is the first time all winter we’ve seen that “foothill snow” setup for more than a day.

The continuous onslaught of heavy snow showers has PILED snow into the mountains. It’s been the biggest snowfall of winter in the Oregon Coast Range. Check out a SNOTEL automated weather station at the 2,000′ elevation just northwest of Hagg Lake. No snow on the ground last Thursday morning, but now 22″ depth. That means significantly more than 22″ has fallen during just these 4-5 days. The depth didn’t go above 7″ during that January snow/cold event. There is another station close by, but up at 3,000′. 37″ snow is on the ground at that location, about a foot more than back in January.

Up in the Cascades the skiing/snowplay has been AMAZING since late last week. I made sure I experienced it firsthand on Friday! 5 to 7 feet have fallen up there

WHAT’S AHEAD

1. There’s no sign of low elevation snow for at least 7-10 days
2. We should be dry or nearly dry Tuesday through Saturday morning; the next 4.5 days!
3. But…temperatures remain cool Tuesday-Thursday with widespread overnight frosts (Wed/Thurs AM) plus mainly sunny days
4. Warming days Thursday and beyond should make it feel more like March

I don’t expect frosty conditions tonight due to thick low cloud cover. That’s good because many roads are wet this evening. A dry day with afternoon sunshine tomorrow should mean just about all roads are dry tomorrow night for the sub-freezing temperatures.

That’s it for this evening, just a quick blog post to let you know things are calming down for the rest of the week. Enjoy the sunshine and crisp mornings!