A taste of spring this weekend as Pineapple Express brings rain, but record warm temperatures too

9:45pm Friday…

I’m already thinking about a Sunday spent mainly outside and so should you! We have a somewhat rare combo of a January day with record warm temps, partly cloudy sky, and no rain. We’re talking temperatures into the 60s…more like spring break or early April instead of January’s typical 40s. Saturday will be the wet (but warm) day this weekend, Sunday should be dry and more similar to an April day. Make your plans!

Typically our warmest weather in December and January occurs with atmospheric rivers and their warm version the Pineapple Express. That’s due to southerly breezes and a very warm subtropical airmass streaming northward. Look at the precipitable water forecast for Saturday afternoon…pretty clear Hawaiian connection there

Then Sunday evening a 2nd firehose of subtropical moisture has arrived, but notice that atmospheric river shifts slightly offshore to the west. That gives us a window of dry weather most of Sunday AND Monday.

Now this evening sure doesn’t feel subtropical in the Portland metro area; a cool easterly breeze blowing out of the Gorge, rainy, and temps in the 40s. But notice 50s are beginning to appear from Salem southward

Get used to those temps in the 50s because once the east wind backs off tomorrow in the metro area we should see 50 or higher continuously through Monday afternoon. The GRAF model that most TV stations use is giving Portland a high around 61 tomorrow, Sunday, and 58 Monday. We only went 56 or so tomorrow assuming easterly breezes linger along the Columbia River and PDX.

But take a look at areas away from the Gorge! Some lower 60s widespread even with the light rain in the Willamette Valley and coastline tomorrow.

Other high-resolution models that resolve our complex terrain well show a similar temperature pattern. With no precipitation from Sunday midday through Monday afternoon

Temperatures really “soar” Sunday with mid-60s possible in the valley and along the coastline.

Then on Monday more of an easterly wind comes out of the Gorge and even spreads a bit up into the Willamette Valley. This may “cap” temperatures closer to 60 in much of the metro area. But it’s fascinating that the WRF-GFS is pushing Cascade foothills (above that cool air) into the mid-upper 60s on Monday!

The all-time January record highs are:

PORTLAND: 66 (2006) SALEM: 68 (1899) EUGENE: 69 (1931)

This is what we’re thinking for Salem…

Of course this weather means all rain the Cascades tomorrow, then very warm but dry weather Sunday. Clearly Sunday is the ski day, although snow will be quite soft after the rain.

Want to hear more about this, plus what went right (or wrong) forecast-wise with the big freeze, snow, wind, and ice? We recorded our longest-ever weather podcast (episode 86) this morning discussing all that. Plenty to cover since Jeff Forgeron is back from family leave with his new baby. It should have dropped into your podcast feed, or you can find the video version (recommended) here: https://www.kptv.com/podcasts/weather/

January will end as it began, wet and very mild

10:10pm Tuesday…

I don’t think I’m being too dramatic by saying it felt a little like spring. I know, that’s stilly on January 23, but after 4-7 days near/below freezing for most of us (length depending on location), a light southerly breeze and 55 felt pretty good! I was standing outside the Corbett Post Office at 1 p.m.; calm with almost no ice on the ground at 50 degrees. A few birds could be heard as the sun warmed me a bit. Considering this spot saw a raging east wind for 8 out of 9 days and one day only around 10 degrees or so…this WAS like spring! Except for the damage from the ice/wind around me, one would have thought we were just continuing onward with our mild/wet El Niño winter and nothing interesting happened this month. But of course it did. Take a look at PDX high temps this month. Well above normal, then 5-6 cold days, now back to normal or above

It’s interesting that even with that extreme cold we didn’t have any record low (minimum) temps. That’s because January is prime “arctic blast” time and we’ve seen many of our big cold waves during this time.

Of course it’s been a soaker, except for just a few dry days and we have blown past our typical January rain total. Clearly this El Niño winter will not be a drier than normal one.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a little “what went right and what we messed up” recap from the three cold weather events last week. But for now I just wanted to point out how mild things are looking.

KEY POINTS

• There’s no sign of a new “arctic blast” or even significantly cold air in the next 10 days. That takes us through the first few days of February
• Lowland snow is unlikely in the next 10 days. The only possibility would be some sort of sloppy/wet snow in the hills at some point, but I don’t see that for now
• Lots more rain is still on the way for the rest of January…the next 8 days
• Freezing is unlikely at night for the next week west of the Cascades
• Some areas west of the Cascades and away from the cool easterly Gorge wind could approach 60 degrees either Sunday or Monday. That’s not very likely in central/east Portland. But Salem, Hillsboro, or Albany?

This graphic summarizes those thoughts a bit

You can see the 500 millibar height anomaly for the next 7 days from the Euro model…upper level ridging is over us much of the time. Heights are higher than average over most of the USA. Storms come at us generally from the west or southwest = mild.

(kptv)

Then the average height anomaly for days 10-15 off this morning’s run. This is the ensemble average. A bit different with a negative anomaly centered over California or just offshore. Looks like the action mainly shifts south of us, but we would still get plenty of weaker systems with abundant rain that first week of February. No sign of a big upper-level ridge to our west and cold air plunging south into the western USA. That’s good, I don’t need a repeat of last week.

Wx Blog(kptv)

So we’ll likely see mild west/southwest flow for the next week, then cooler but weaker systems heading into later NEXT week and the first week of February. All models agree on this general pattern. The evening GEM (Canadian) max/min temperature plot shows that nicely; very mild temps through the middle of next week then noticeably cooler that first week of February

That’s it for this evening…rain and mild is the story and your life can proceed as normal for now.

East Portland ice storm continues Thursday evening; what’s ahead heading toward the weekend

9:40pm Thursday…

Believe it or not a “warm front” passed overhead today with moderate to heavy rain in NW Oregon and SW Washington. Yes, it’s now warmer (33deg) at the top of the Magic Mile chairlift (7.000′) than many parts of the metro area. So where is the warm air? As models correctly forecast, a strong easterly wind returned through the Gorge by sunrise and shoved a 1,500′ layer of cold air across the metro area and up/down the Willamette Valley. Now this cold airmass is 15-20 degrees warmer than the one that came in last Saturday. But that’s still just barely cold enough to drop temps to freezing or even a few notches below across a good chunk of the central/eastern metro area, plus West Hills and other adjacent areas. Here are the current metro temps; what you can’t see is most of East Portland over/east of I-205 is in the 28-30 degree range. That’s cold enough for renewed icing on some roads this evening. Everywhere else roads have remained wet or slushy; notice all official airport locations except Troutdale are at/above freezing and PDX has remained ice-free.

Roads aren’t such a big deal, but falling trees and downed power lines are a BIG deal this evening. We (and likely you) have been watching numerous power flashes as power lines arc or branches fall on lines. BTW, transformers rarely “explode” according to my lineman neighbor even though we all use that phrase. That’s the extent of my knowledge on that subject. Why so many issues with powerlines and trees down? We expected the wind and 1/4 to 1/2″ additional ice glazing in these areas, but look at the precipitation today…up to an inch!

Strong east wind has likely been gusting 30-50 mph east metro, but just about all wind sensors are down due to icing or out of power. In fact no western Gorge sensors are functional either. But we know it’s very strong with the pressure gradient back up around 12 millibars PDX to The Dalles. I see PGE outages have climbed from around 5,000 customers when I came in at 2pm to around 45,000 now! That’s a major event, especially considering it’s concentrated in Multnomah and northern Clackamas counties. Sure, we had a brief thaw yesterday and this morning, but now 1/2 of the metro area is at least partially frozen again, adding to the miserable week we’ve been experiencing.

WHAT’S AHEAD?

• Precipitation should end soon, and then we’re mainly dry until late Saturday afternoon. Temperatures tonight hover right where they are, which means there will be areas of ice for the morning drive in the West Hills and anywhere east of there. Clark County and much of Washington County should see mainly clear roads (except for areas where is still present from Tuesday’s freezing rain)
• The east wind backs off a little tomorrow, then quite a bit Saturday.
• Since the cold airmass east of the Cascades has modified a bit, that should allow Portland to creep up into the upper 30s tomorrow. That will help roads a bit and allow some ice to fall off trees. In the western metro west of the West Hills life should once again be a bit closer to normal; I was surprised how many people were out and around in Beaverton (by the TV station) compared to east side. Same thing should happen tomorrow.
• A further weakening of the wind Saturday should allow more spots in the metro to peak around 40 or even slightly above. Troutdale and Gresham like only reach upper 30s in that wind.
• Light rain late Saturday and Saturday night should only be freezing rain EAST of the metro area in the Gorge since temps remain above freezing.
• On Sunday the easterly wind really backs off, and that should let more of us (even in the city) reach 40 or so…slightly quicker melting.

Portland’s Forecast(kptv)

So the big question…when will my normal life resume? For one, I’m right with you, my home and road are totally encased in ice and I don’t have power like many of you. The answer is that even with temperatures barely reaching 32 each night and highs up around 40, melting is painfully slow with this cold east wind. I don’t think “normal” returns for most of us east of I-205 until Monday and beyond. By the way, the central/eastern Gorge picked up 4-8″ snow today and that’s not going anywhere through the weekend

Freezing rain tomorrow in parts of metro plus another blast of east wind

7:30pm Wednesday…

We’ve had a good run of forecasting success for over a week; predicting the sequence of events leading into the big cold/wind storm last Saturday…many days ahead of time. Timing and precipitation-type forecasts were reasonable for the big storm too (although lighter than expected). Then the slow warmup with additional freezing rain yesterday was well-timed. So it was time for a little “humble-pie” today wasn’t it? Yes the metro area sure did warm up today; on average about 10 degrees, but the warm 45 degree southerly wind stalled in the southern metro area. So only some of us got to see that warm air arrival. Still, at 7pm we’re running 7-13 degrees warmer than 6pm yesterday.

In fact after 120 hours, PDX finally rose above freezing for the first time since last Friday afternoon. But as of this hour that temp is just sitting at 34 degrees.

This graphic shows the areas where warming south wind didn’t arrive…only 40+ temps are plotted. 40s crept as far north as Tigard over to Happy Valley. East wind disappeared in the Gorge at midday, replaced by a few hours of melting at Vista House and Corbett. In fact at 6pm it’s warmer in the western Gorge than at PDX!

That tells me we have a very thin layer of cold air just sitting over us. That doesn’t change much during the night. So we won’t see any significant warmup during overnight hours, but no big drop for widespread freezing either…kind of “status quo” overnight.

As mentioned in last night’s post, cold easterly wind surges back into the metro area once again Thursday due to another area of low pressure approaching the coastline plus a fresh batch of arctic air headed down through the Rocky Mountains = high pressure there. We’re headed back to 10-11 millibars cross-Cascade pressure gradient Thursday afternoon. I expect a return to easterly gusts 70-90 mph in the western Gorge and 35-50 mph in the east metro. Not a big damaging wind event, but I’m sure that will cause a few more power outages. That low pressure system sends a warm front overhead with abundant precipitation. It will rain all day tomorrow for all of us west of the Cascades. At this point it appears the coldest the eastern/central metro area should be tomorrow is 30-35 degrees. That’s cold enough to bring freezing rain back into the forecast there, but likely not enough to cause renewed icing on roads. The highest resolution model we have access to shows the area of freezing rain (yellow) spreading into east metro at 4pm

The prettier TV version we will use…

And where the cool air runs into the West Hills when headed westward, another area of freezing rain up there.

If you live outside of the blue areas, it will be too warm for freezing rain Thursday…you’ll just see regular cold rain.

All areas will be dry Friday, and most likely it’ll be just a bit too “warm” Saturday for freezing rain in the metro area…but stay tuned.

COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE

With continuing easterly wind tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday, that cold airmass remains locked into the Gorge. Tomorrow’s round of rain west of the Cascades falls into a much airmass over/east of the Cascades = snowfall. Soundings show sub-freezing air all the way down to river level with no warm layer. West of Bonneville Dam the cold layer (as always) thins thus freezing rain around Cape Horn, Bridal Veil, Corbett, and Crown Pt.

I think there’s a good chance both I-84 and SR14 remain closed tomorrow, but we’ll see about a re-opening Friday with dry weather. Regardless, I was thinking I had missed some good icy waterfall viewing with the coldest air in many years out there. But the continuing cold easterly wind means those falls will remain frozen/icy through at least Saturday.

Warm-up timing tomorrow depends on your location, but it WILL warm up!

9pm Tuesday…

The entire Willamette Valley and Columbia River Gorge is locked in ice this evening. Timing was perfect with a mix of freezing rain and some ice pellets arriving right at the beginning of our 4pm broadcast. Traffic cameras show a bit of a ghost town in Portland with very few cars. After a batch of steady rain earlier, now it’s mainly freezing drizzle and light showers. So far Salem has picked up about 1/4″ rainfall and the metro area between .10″ and .20″. Obviously all untreated roads and freeways are coated in a layer of glaze ice. Temperatures are well down in the 20s for all of us in the lowlands at 8pm. Eugene is sitting at 30 degrees, but that changes around midnight or so as a mild southerly wind arrives.

KEY POINTS FOR NEXT 24 HOURS

• The Portland metro area stays frozen through the morning commute as east wind continues to transport cold air westward out of the Gorge, but south of Portland a warming southerly wind arrives during the night. Same thing up at Kelso/Longview. Temperatures in these areas reach into the 40s by sunrise.
• During the first half of Wednesday, warm southerly wind makes it up into the west metro, south, and Clark county. But through midday, sub-freezing air remains locked in from PDX airport out into East Portland. Roads will still be locked in ice at noon for central/east metro, but turning slushy other areas. Finally, the cold east wind disappears in the last cold areas along the Columbia River in early afternoon. Temperatures finally rise above freezing, at least to 40 degrees, out in East Portland.
• Roads will be slow to thaw out there east of I-205 and near the Columbia River. By evening I expect far less ice elsewhere on roads.
• This isn’t a big ice storm for most of us, maybe 1/4″ ice glazing for much of metro. But up to 1/2″ eastside will bring renewed power outages tomorrow.
• After tomorrow, 90% of the metro area should be ice/snow free the rest of the week.
• But we are watching a renewed cold east wind for Thursday; will it be cold enough to change regular rain back to freezing rain out near the Gorge? Could Troutdale, Gresham, Camas, & Washougal turn icy again Thursday afternoon/evening? We don’t know yet because we’re unsure how much cold air will be left east of the mountains.

Weather models are quite similar showing a warming southerly wind spreading up the valley overnight as east wind starts to back off in Portland. That’s because a surface low pressure system is moving northward just offshore. Here’s the 10pm position this evening west of Florence.

Then 7am Wednesday; you see the surface low is just west of Forks, WA. Southerly breezes have spread up the valley to north of Salem.

Temperatures at 7am look about like this…red is above freezing. Easterly wind continues in metro area = still frozen.

We will need to wait for the associated “cold front” to pass through around noon or just after for a mild southwesterly breeze to kick in. At that time the freezing level drops from 6,000′ to 2,500′ in the mild air above this low-level arctic airmass. That should finally kill the easterly wind and allow the ENTIRE metro area to warm well above freezing in the afternoon

So the thaw will be slow in central/eastern metro area tomorrow, and just because the temp rises to 40-45 degrees doesn’t mean ice suddenly disappears off roads. It takes time. This is what I’m thinking

How much ice? Not a major ice storm like February 2021 of course with 1″, 2″ or even more ice glazed the southern metro area. We’re talking .10-.30″ ice accretion for most of us.

As cold air sloshes back into the metro area Thursday (leftover cold air east of Cascades), that brings more freezing rain to the western Gorge, but mainly snow from Cascade Locks eastward. At this point I’m thinking temperatures may drop into the 30-32 degree range east of I-205 that day. If so, that could be a setup where freezing rain glazes trees/objects again but not really impacting roads much. During the daytime it needs to be down around 28-30 for roads to freeze. Over an “abundance of caution” I’ve colored the 2nd half of Thursday red and called it a First Alert Weather Day out there.

We turn dry Friday so even though we’ll stay chilly and the Gorge stays frozen, I doubt we’ll see significant new weather impacts. I plan on NOTHING happening weatherwise this weekend that will impact my expected afternoon nap one of those days, by the fireplace and with the cat…am I getting old?

Warm southerly wind arrives Wednesday, but first a round of freezing rain brings an icy Tuesday PM commute

7:20pm Monday…

At least it hit 30 degrees today under sunny skies in Portland…but SO COLD with a strong east wind blowing out of the Gorge. Windchill temperature (what it feels like) has been in the single digits for much of today in the windy areas.

Peak gusts have ramped up again to 35-50 mph in the usual areas near the Gorge, into East Portland, and in the West Hills. The pressure difference from The Dalles to PDX is right at the high end of what we typically see in winter; 12.7 millibars this evening. This isn’t a big windstorm like Saturday, but enough to bring fresh outages and miserable work conditions for utility workers trying to restore power. And of course temperatures in the 30s and 40s in many homes that have now been without power for 2 days. Still, progress is being made with 48,000 PGE customers still out of power compared to 160,000 on Saturday afternoon. I remember there were doubters back on Wednesday/Thursday thinking not much was really going to happen weather-wise. Check out the peak gusts today with the windy areas in blue. There are still lots of sensors with no power, including those especially windy ones at Crown Point and Corbett

The good news is that for the vast majority of us, this cold/windy/icy period will end sometime between tomorrow night and midday Wednesday. After noon Wednesday, the only area still stuck in the cold air will be the Columbia River Gorge. At least residents out there are used to long periods of ice/snow/cold. The bad news is that the transition to warmer weather involves freezing rain, so the NWS has issued an Ice Storm Warning for tomorrow

HIGHLIGHTS

• All areas west of the Cascades (inland from coast) remain cold/dry through midday Tuesday. Temperatures remain in the 20s, although it may briefly touch the 30-32 range tomorrow midday before precipitation arrives.
• Liquid rain begins falling around Eugene around noon due to warmer air a few thousand feet up. Then it spreads northward to the Portland metro area around 3pm, then into the Gorge and north to Longview. All areas will see an icy glaze forming on all objects, including roads. That’s freezing rain, although some ice pellets may be mixed in as well.
• Since it’s the “peak of daytime heating”, roads will be above freezing in many areas until the sun sets. I’ve noticed in the past it needs to be at/below 28 for most roads to freeze at midday, and at/below 30 at night for roads to freeze. Don’t be fooled if roads are just wet in your neighborhood at first, they WILL freeze around/after sunset. I’d plan to be off roads by 4pm…just to be safe. Shaded areas may freeze soon after rain arrives.
• Before temperatures warm, expect up to 1/4″ ice glazing most of the I-5 corridor, with up to 1/2″ in east Portland metro locations that stay below freezing longer.
• Much warmer southerly wind arrives in the valley tomorrow night, into most of metro area by sunrise Wednesday, then into east metro by noon Wednesday at the latest. The Gorge will not see substantial warming until at least Friday/Saturday. “Much warmer” means temperatures well into the 40s! For one day we’ll lose the cold east wind and it’ll be glorious…

COMMUTE ROAD CONDITIONS

Tomorrow evening’s commute and Wednesday morning’s commute will be very icy in the metro area. South of Portland (and Longview), Wednesday morning should just be wet since roads thaw during the night. In East Portland, there will be plenty of ice on roads well into Wednesday midday/pm.

I love this graphic (fueled by the GRAF model). It shows the classic setup with the retreating cold airmass disappearing out of the valley first and then east Portland metro areas are the last to thaw. It happens this way ALMOST every time! First at 6pm tomorrow, warm air is just about to punch into Eugene and foothills are already above freezing

Then during the night a big warmup for just about all the valley south of Portland as southerlies have arrived. But cold air is still hanging on in parts of metro area, especially central/eastside for the Wednesday morning commute…very icy for most of us.

Did you know the phrase “Chinook Wind” was first applied to this warm southwest wind BEFORE people started using the term for those westerly winds that come off the Rockies? A little history for you there. Anyway, southerlies should push through the entire metro area by noon Wednesday at the latest. I think this model is too aggressive pushing westerly wind into the Gorge. It’ll probably just go calm and anywhere east of Bridal Veil stays frozen.

So the timeline looks like this in Salem and Longview…or anywhere else north/south of the Portland metro area.

By the way, models are in pretty good agreement on precipitation arrival times…around 1pm at Salem

And 3-4pm at the latest in Portland. Notice there appears to be one band of freezing rain that moves through, then it may be mainly dry for quite a few hours in the evening and early overnight hours. I suppose that will help roads freeze up nicely too.

Wx Blog(kptv)

That’s about it for this evening, the leftover cold air will come sloshing back into the metro area Thursday for a chilly/rainy day. Most likely freezing rain will be confined to the western Gorge at that point and not make it into the eastern metro area. But it will be close; that’s cold rain Thursday!

Thursday’s cold rain

Winter Storm Watch: Two more very cold days as freezing rain arrives Tuesday afternoon

9:45pm Sunday

Today was one of the coldest days we’ve seen in Portland. Sure, it didn’t stay in the teens all day, but we’ve only had 4 other days this cold in my entire career (back to 1991). Portland only made it to 23 degrees

The strong east wind died down a bit today, but now I see it’s ramping up again. Power is back on at Vista House and it’s gusting in the 60-70 mph range again. Expect a much stronger wind tomorrow through early Tuesday. That wind totally disappears Wednesday midday or afternoon, to be replaced by a mild southerly wind for at least one day.

Unfortunately for the many thousands of you out of power, we’ve got two more very cold nights and days ahead as a low-level cold airmass continues to pour out of the Gorge through Tuesday night. We remain below freezing the next two afternoons and dip mainly into the teens both nights.

The good news? Every single bit of information I have access to says we get out of the freezer on Wednesday. The bad news is that we’ve got a “silver thaw” on the way. That means freezing rain in the transition from cold/dry to mild/wet. That happens Tuesday afternoon/evening. Look at the GRAF ice glazing forecast through Wednesday morning. This will be all about the Willamette Valley, Portland metro, and into the Gorge

For this reason the NWS has issued a Winter Storm Watch for these areas. And we’re calling Tuesday and Wednesday First Alert Weather Days which means “pay attention” to those days closely.

I WILL NAIL DOWN EXACT TIMING AND EFFECTS tomorrow in a longer weather blog post in the evening (while Emmys are on FOX12). Actually we’re still calling tomorrow a First Alert Weather Day due to the unusually cold/windy combo once again even though there is no “storm”. So many people are freezing in their homes without power. Basically this is a 5-6 day long cold/snow/ice/wind event that is affecting all of us.

Take a look at what happened in the Cascades through this last week or so. Remember snowpack was about 20% of normal on Mt. Hood? Now it’s back to normal after 7 to 9 feet of snow.

I see Timberline’s base depth is now around 100″ after all this snowfall

(kptv)

The best skiing of the next 10 days will likely be tomorrow and Tuesday; we’re headed for a milder pattern once again with mixed rain/snow at ski resorts late in the week and into next weekend. Looks like “El Niño” conditions may be returning.

That’s it for tonight, more tomorrow.