Good morn’n, Patron ☕️.  Before we discuss the drenching rains on the way, please accept a personal update.  Many of you have been so gracious with comforting ‘well wishes’ during this past week.  It was not our intent to take “under the weather” to such an extreme!  Mug full?

Personal:  Tomorrow marks the 29th anniversary of this community service venture.  We have rarely missed publishing The Weather Café®️ every Monday & Friday, rain or shine, holidays or illness.  Last weekend, we experienced a life-threatening abdominal event that strikes without warning.  A similar event took place in Oct 2008 - as many of you may recall - that confined us to a Florida hospital ‘vacation' for 21 days.  A literal side effect of that event some 15 yrs ago, is directly responsible for the prompt trip to ER on the 23rd for an emergency surgery, from which recovery is never just an overnight stay.  Well, we finally discharged from hospital Monday afternoon.  Again, THANK YOU for the kind words of support & friendship.  Our Patrons are a quiet cohort that speak up to bless us at times.  Mug cold?  Let’s get to it.

Halloween 2023 will be a chilly, 'dry costume' end to October.  The drenching rains of November will begin on Wed Nov 1.  The precip may hold off until nightfall in some areas, the afternoon in others, either way, models indicate the potential for multiple inches of rain from coast to Cascades across the entire PNW.  WINDY, too.  But wait, there’s more.

A short break in the rain is possible on Fri the 3rd, before another wet period from Sat through Tue, Nov 4-7.  Temperatures will trend a few degrees cooler in that period.  Right now, Wed & the front portion of Thu (Nov 8,9) next week are trending dry.  Then, WHAM, another super-wet strike from the Pacific.  Should models verify (!), the amount of moderate-to-heavy rainfall across the entire PNW from overnight Thu the 7th through Monday Nov 13th could be unrelenting!!  WINDY, too.  We can only hope that long-range models are incorrect, as the event could be a 'mirror image' of the serious impact-flooding experienced in Nov 2006.  What will help minimize the excessive flow of water down the slopes and across the valleys is that freezing levels should drop low enough to ’trap’ mountain precip as snow, mid-weekend Nov 11,12.  The snow could begin falling as low at the coast range by Mon Nov 13.  Good.

It will NOT dry out the week of Nov 13-17, it will simply turn colder, with low snow levels.  A warmer, more westerly flow is possible by the weekend of Nov 18,19.  However, should a ridge of High pressure push north over the Gulf of Alaska, we could be in for a notable COLD SNAP.  Stay tuned.

Bottom line: a news-making amount of water is about to fall.  The possibility for 5”-13” of precip across the entire region in the first 2 weeks of November could be epic.  Low snow levels are a must to mitigate flood issues, of which there will be.  Fallen leaves will plug storm drains - help out by safely by raking away, if you can.  The typical flood-zones will be impacted.  Prepare now.  As you know, our intent is not to sensationalize, but to have you prepared, just in case.

Stop by again on Friday.

(Your host is still in hospital following emergency surgery earlier this week.  We hope to be discharged this weekend.)

-Cold weekend.  Dry.  Slowly warming next week, but dry until overnight Wed Nov 1

-Very wet, stormy from Nov 2 through Nov 10, excluding a two day break from the rains Tue & Wed Nov 7,8.

-May stay dry from the 10th through the 13th

-Snow levels will drop below passes at times.

From Albany General Hospital,

-Rufus

Copyright © 1994-2023 - All Rights Reserved - The Weather Café ®

Please pardon the delay in posting.  Not feeling well at all.  This will be short.

A much advertised cold front is working its way south along the BC coast today.  Arrives overnight, from north-to-south.  WINDY conditions out of the Fraser Gap will come into play, after all.  Breezy in OR.  The High pressure Yukon Dome will reach our ‘1040 mb’ mark, so expect winds to increase later tomorrow.  Quite windy on Wed.  RAIN, moderate-at-times Tue & Wed.  Drying late week, with FROST possible if the sky clears & winds drop in your area.  

A secondary push of cold, continental air will begin arriving on Fri, so expect chilly temps to continue.  Continued chance for FROST into the weekend ahead.

This High pressure Dome will move south & east, setting up STRONG WINDS over southern OR and CA Sunday.  Next week, CA may get the ’Santa Ana Winds’ going in the south. 

The PNW will remain DRY with east-to-northeast breezes diminishing around Halloween.  A dry Halloween.  We don’t say that often!  Next period of very wet weather should arrive Thu Nov 2 and continue for at least 5 days.  Help keep storm drains clear of leaves.

Prep water spigots, irrigation lines, patio plants, etc for subfreezing temps.  

Providing a heads-up concerning potential weather events that may have impact is the foundation of The Weather Café®️.  Such is the case today.  Get your morn’n beverage ready.

Pleasant fall afternoon today, once the fog clears away in the usual locations.  The weekend ahead will present Saturday as mostly cloudy & dry, with showers or rain moving in overnight into Sunday.  Most of the precip will fall south of Salem (~2 tenths), with enough precip to wet the roads north all the way into WA.  Temps will be mild, yet a few degrees cooler each afternoon this weekend.

Monday the 23rd looks dry, as the PNW will between systems.  A notable shift in the overall pattern will begin Tue Oct 24.  The Low pressure system we have been mentioning for over a week now will arrive Tue, but from a different direction, if you will.  Backstory: long-time Patrons know that we pay close attention to High pressure domes that form over the Yukon region with a center pressure at 1040 mb or higher.  Well, current model solutions indicate a Yukon High of around 1032-1038 mb developing Tue, then moving south in a classic ‘winter’ type motion.  Agreed, not a '1040 dome', but close.  The Low we have expected will form along the cold air boundary of that High on Tue, ushering in rain and COLDER temps overnight Tue and through Wed.  We are not labeling this an ’Arctic Event’ - not at all - just the first push of chilly interior Canada air of fall 2023.  (That Low will not move in from the west, nor track south off the coast - which was the earlier model scenarios.)  Stay with us - - -

Wet and chilly Wednesday, with snow levels dropping enough to coat the top of the Cascades.  The system will move east rapidly, ushering in chilly air for Thu.  Right now, although close, we do not see a frost on Friday morning (temps in the low 40s to upper 30s possible west side).  But wait, there’s more.  A secondary push of colder air is modeled to more over the PNW later on Friday, so expect dry but chilly temps for the afternoon, turning much colder overnight Fri.  FROST is likely Saturday & Sunday morning, Oct 28,29 - with subfreezing temps on both sides of the Cascades.  There is an outside chance for a weak Low to form along the southern OR coast for showers there, and snow showers possible across eastern OR.  Maybe.  Farther north, fog may form in places, which may limit how cold it gets.  We will update this, if the models verify the chilly pattern next week.

An east wind out of the Columbia River Gorge will not be severe, but it will get going as the weekend of Oct 28,29 ends.  (At this time, we do not foresee a wind issue for the Fraser Gap.)  Dry to start the Oct 30 - Nov 3 week.  Frosty morning possible Monday, although the air mass will begin to warm, with an offshore flow.  Rain may move in from the west by late Thu Nov 2 or on Fri Nov 3.  The chilly dry period will be over.  Expect a wet, mild first weekend for November 2023.  

Bottom line: first frosts of the fall may be on the way.  Use this heads-up to prepare for a few nights of subfreezing temps.  NOT super cold, but definitely cold enough to nip sensitive patio plants or freeze an outdoor water line.  

The PNW will be in a dry pattern for several days, after the current storm passes by.  Here’s a look at the latest outlook for the 2nd half of Oct.

Rain & breezy today, with showers and/or thunderstorms developing later this afternoon.  Tue will be a transition day into the dry spell, as High pressure builds over the region.  Temperatures mid-week will rebound to 70+ in several west side locations; a tad cooler around the Puget Sound, as the ’tail’ of a system keeps clouds and rain possible over Vancouver Is until Thu.  The coming weekend has been trending dry, but there are a few model solutions suggesting clouds and widely scattered showers on Sunday.  This is iffy right now.  

The next wet system had been modeled to arrive as a ’slam-bam’ windy storm on Tue Oct 24th.  That could still verify.  However, recent model scenarios track that deep Low west of the OR coast and south into CA.  Were this scenario verify, SW and SE OR could get some showers and/or thunderstorms as the moisture wraps northward around that Low.  Nearly all of CA would get rain.  COOL & dry for western OR & WA; damp over SE OR & ID. 

We’ll need to wait for models to, hopefully, consolidate a solution for the 24th storm.  Whether or not that system comes onshore over OR or south into CA, the weather afterwards is trending DRY and cool for the PNW through the weekend of Oct 28,29.  FOGGY bottoms, at times, for the usual locations, such as south of Salem, etc.

For the very end of the month & Halloween - possible showers & cool conditions.  Heavier rain storms are modeled to track into the Alaskan Panhandle.  Overall, the PNW looks rather dry for most of the 2nd half of October.