By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
The first weather system of the season continues to bring rain into the area, we had yet another front slowly move ashore this morning, bringing yet another round of rain across the area. In the last 24 hours ending at 8:00am this morning, Tillamook Airport reported .35” of rain while Lees Camp in the Coast Range reported .70” of rain, Mt. Hebo reported 1.21” and Central and Southern Coastal Oregon has seen over 1.5”. Some good news though, besides putting a real damper on the wildfires, the lower rain rates with the breaks between systems has allowed the rivers to not rise significantly, with the forecast still that they will only climb around 1-3’ over the next couple days.
The driving force continues to be a large and strong low pressure center currently spinning in the northeastern Pacific. It looks like the low has started to slowly weaken but will continue to rotate other disturbances under the low and across our area. The front continues to drift eastward but the strong southwesterly flow will push clouds and moisture up across our area, so the cloudy, rainy conditions continue tonight, also with a chance of some thunderstorms along with some breezy southerly winds 15-20 gusting to 30, with gusts to 40-45 possible at the beaches, lows near 52.
It is likely that another low pressure center will develop in the flow tomorrow and rotate into Washington by tomorrow night. This will give us more rain with possible thunderstorms during the day tomorrow, the winds southerly 14-18 gusting to 30, highs near 62. Then the winds likely ramp up tomorrow night, still with rain and possible thunderstorms, those winds southerly 18-24 gusting to near 40, lows near 50. As is always the case, there are many factors that can affect the strength and path of these lows that the models fail to pick up. Having said that, there is a chance that the low develops sooner, and weakens sooner, but the opposite is also true, it could develop later and stronger and that would bring winds as high as 55 (or higher) to the beaches. The best advice is to be ready for whatever.
So, we expect the low to move into coastal Washington Wednesday morning but that would still be rotating morning rain, then afternoon rainshowers with possible thunderstorms across our area, the winds start to slowly subside, becoming southwesterly 14-18 gusting to 25-30, highs near 62, then only scattered showers Wednesday night under mostly cloudy skies, the low down to near 48.
Thursday on it looks like we will continue to be influenced by a trough or two that move across the area, so Thursday we see more scattered showers under mostly cloudy skies, highs only near 60 and lows down near 47. Some patchy morning fog is also possible.
Friday conditions start to improve some, a partly sunny day with scattered showers, the high near 61, the showers become more widely scattered by Friday night, patchy morning fog possible again, lows drop to near 43.
Things look like they dry out over the weekend with the return of mostly sunny skies, the highs up near 64 Saturday, and up to near 66 Sunday, the lows up near 45 by Sunday.
