Forecast

Mix of dry & wet days ahead, cooler as well.  Fill up your Mug & meet back here in 3 - 2 - 1 -

 

Foggy morning in places, others with morning sunshine.  A rather weak front will bring on a bit of rain later Sat, on into early Sunday.  Gusty east winds ’through the passes' & Columbia River Gorge ahead of the front.  Short break in the precip is on tap Mon for most of the PNW, except rain & breezy over Vancouver Is. & the far NW corner of WA.  This system is likely to drape a band of rain/showers across the rest of the PNW on Tue Dec 8.  Models are quite variable for the arrival of 'mid-week rain’ - could be late Wed or sometime on Thu.  This one will have decent amount of cold air behind the front, so snow shower levels will drop by late Thu, maybe even below 2,000 ft.  It will clear and dry out following the cold front, so expect ICY conditions develop, should the sky clear in your locations early Fri morning the 11th.  

 

The weekend of Dec 12,13 is looking wet on Sat, with dry, chilly conditions for Sunday.  Monday Dec 14 should turn wet from north-to-south, with moderate rain possible in western WA & BC.  On/off episodes of rain & mountain snow will be the story for that week (Dec 14-18).  Rather windy, at times, esp for BC, WA and NW OR.  That said, locations south of Salem or Eugene may not get much precip during the week, as the systems will be focused on the northern areas of the PNW.   

 

Ponder Point: over the past several days, models had toyed with a decent WIND producer in the Dec 13-15 period, followed by a threat for very low - if not at the surface - snow levels by the Fri Dec 18.  While this is now ‘gone’, we should be alert for that famous model ‘regression’ to earlier solutions as an event period nears.  We’ll see.

 

Chilly & overall dry conditions are possible for the weekend of Dec 19,20.  A waaaaaay out there, long-range peek at Christmas wx suggests that a ridge of High pressure may build over the west coast after the 20th, setting up the potential for a rather mild Christmas, wet or dry.   Don’t bet the Egg Nog yet.