Our hearts go out to all Patrons in NW WA and southern BC - the heavy, flooding rains just won’t let go.  More to come before we get out of November.  Refill and read on.

 

As noted, serious flooding & landslides are impacting so many Patrons around the PNW.  For some, the moderate-to-heavy rainfall has continued daily since last week.  Temps have set records for WARMTH, which has held freezing levels high, sending all the heavy mountain slope precip right down rivers into the flooding lowlands.  Yikes.  There will be a few short breaks in the steady rain between now and the end of November.  However, while OR and much of western WA will dry out reasonably well, inches more rain will fall in NW WA and southern BC.  Now the details.

 

Today (Nov 15): a Low pressure system will rapidly move into the PNW.  This one is continuing heavy rain up north, but will also pack a short, but powerful WIND FIELD later today or tonight.  It will be the rapid rise in barometric pressure, post-frontal passage, that will kick-up quite a WIND. Willamette Valley and north will likely get 35-45 mph gusts, maybe 50+ in places.  (Yes, the last system we warned about did NOT pack the expected winds in OR; NW WA / BC did get hammered, though).  Power outages are probable up & down west side of the Cascades, adding misery to Patrons already struggling with floods up north.  Rainfall in OR should be in the half inch range at the valley floor; higher in the usual places; inches up north today/tonight.  Temperatures will drop RAPIDLY, so this will help ‘hold’ some of the precip in the mountains as SNOW (dropping below pass levels).

 

Dry most of Tue, Wed and early Thu.  Then, late Thu, WHAM - as another tightly packed Low pressure storm will come onshore around Astoria overnight Thu (! tracking inside the 130W).  Model solutions are quite variable on this one, but the pattern warrants our mention.  WINDY, esp or coast & willamette Valley Thu night.  WET.  Drying out Fri afternoon.  

 

Additional moderate-heavy rain is due to arrive over NW WA & southern BC late Saturday into Sunday.  Areas south of roughly Longview should remain mostly DRY.  Astoria will pick up some rain.  Oregon should be mild & dry Monday.  Repeat of the wet pattern is charted for Mon night, Nov 22, with portions of the north OR coast getting some rain; most of the precip to hit the already saturated NW WA, Vancouver Is, etc.  Tue Nov 23 is trending DRY, even for the far north zone we keep mentioning.   Pre-Thanksgiving, Wed, is looking generally dry everywhere (including much of the lower 48).

 

Thanksgiving Day:  dry everywhere except far NW WA, Vanc Is., and southern BC (sorry, but another round of heavy rain is on the charts).  That rain will let up on Black Fri.  Thankfully, the dry pattern should hold all the way through the long-US holiday weekend, even for our Canadian Patrons.  Let’s hope this verifies!

 

Rain returns to the PNW on Mon & Tue to end a very wet November.  California is modeled to be dry for the rest of November, excluding a few showers over northern CA from our windy storm overnight this Thu.

 

In Summary - total precipitation expected from today through Nov 30 is as follows:  Olympic Penn & Vancouver Island = 3.5"-8”; southern BC mountains (feeding the Fraser River) = 5”-12”; SW WA and Willamette Valley = another 1”-2”, with more in the coast & western slopes of the Cascades.  

 

 

 

Since late Wed, inches of rain have fallen for areas Salem north.   Let’s peek at what may happen between now and Thanksgiving.  Mug time.

 

Heavy rain should remain in play for OR north of Salem on into western WA & BC.  Patrons south of Salem have missed out on this long-stretch of steady rainfall.  Overall, things should begin to dry out for all regions as the weekend gets going, before another round of precipitation arrives late Sunday & Monday.  Notice how warm it has been?  (62 this morning in Albany.)  That will change on Monday, as a cold front arrives.  Snow levels will drop below the passes by Monday night.  Temps will be in the 40s for most areas west of the Cascades early next week.  By Thu, temps will slowly moderate over western OR (& remain cool in NW WA), with a wet system possible by Friday.  Could be windy over southern OR Thu night into Fri.

 

The weekend of Nov 20,21 is trending chilly, but dry overall.  Frosty morning on Sat and/or Sunday, if the sky clears where you fill that morning Mug.  Colder air (fed by a High pressure dome moving south out of interior Canada) will drop into the heartland of the US, so a big freeze is possible over the northern plains, upper midwest that weekend.  Pre-Thanksgiving winter slap.

 

Weather around the PNW during the days right before Thanksgiving will be mild in comparison.  Some model solutions bring more rain into the northern half of western WA & Vancouver area early Thanksgiving week; others keep the entire PNW on the dry side, with foggy bottoms, in the usual places.  Thanksgiving is trending less wet than earlier projections with mild temps, esp for OR.  We’ll see.

 

The extended Thanksgiving weekend is trending relatively calm across most of the lower 48 states, which will be decent for holiday travel.  Again, early yet, but at least the ‘view’ is favorable at this time.  

 

 

Here’s the latest forecast for the next couple of weeks.

 

WIND will still be possible later tonight.  Models have struggled more than political parties to work things out, so there is a huge variance in the outlook for the next storm.  We will call for the potential of 30-40 mph gusts in areas of the Willamette Valley overnight, maybe a bit stronger, depending on how deep the Low develops as it crosses the 130W line.  Part of the modeling problem is, to keep it simple, a ‘double Low’ structure that is setting up west of the coast.  The northern Low will be very deep (maybe <970 mb) as it moves north of Vancouver Island around midnight (STRONG WIND); the southern Low - the one that will set up winds for OR - will not deepen as much.  Combined, the Lows will generate winds across a large area of the PNW.  A good amount of rain will accompany the storm.  Blustery showers later Tue.

 

The next system is due in sometime late Wed.  Not as strong, but sourced with plenty of moisture at the mid-level, so rain will be steady and moderate into Fri., with the bulk of the rain over SW WA & NW OR.  The weekend is trending mixed, with possible showers, mainly north of Portland on Sunday.  Another cold front is charting for next Monday evening, Nov 15, hitting NW WA the most.  Plenty of rain & lowering snow levels - esp over NW WA Tuesday night.  Breezy.  Drying out Wed, with cold air aloft, so FROST possible Thu morning, Nov 18.   By Friday Nov 19, chilly rain & windy conditions are possible.  However, some model solutions keep in dry heading into the weekend of Nov 20,21.  

 

Thanksgiving Week: early to peg down just yet, but the trend is for the week to start out rather pleasant for Nov, with some foggy bottoms and sunshine.  (That said, rain could hit in a band across northern Vancouver Island into BC, missing most of NW WA, south.)  By Wed, however, a storm is charting to arrive, bringing back rainfall for our region.  Again, too soon to be confident of the holiday week weather.  Traditional, it’s wet on Thanksgiving.  We’ll see.

 

 

 

It was back in November of 1994 that we started The Weather Café®️.   Over 2,800 forecasts have been produced these past 27 years.  There is no claim of special ability to ‘beat the odds’ and always be right; rather, we simply discuss what may happen weather-wise, providing the reader time to prepare for big weather events, just in case model projections are correct.   Thousands have benefited from this free community service over the decades.  You’ve told us so.  There, the horn has been blown, now back to the forecast.  Mug refilled?

 

A normal November stormy pattern will continue for the PNW over the next several days.   Rain & showers on tap for the weekend, with breezy conditions, at times.  By Sunday, the air aloft will be the coldest of the season.  Such an unstable atmosphere can set off thunderstorms, small hail and wind gusts.  Stay alert, if outside this weekend. 

 

There is the potential for a MAJOR WIND EVENT come late Monday, early Tue next week.  A Low may form SW of OR and rapidly deepen before it crosses the 130W line (discussed in an earlier update).  If this system does, indeed, develop, as a few solutions suggest, it could produce powerful WINDS, esp over western OR.  Maybe exceeding the 50 mph of our last blast in the Willamette Valley.  The precise track of big wind producing storms is key, as you know.  Right now, models indicating this Low (some do not), track it as a tightly packed storm - center pressure of 976-982 mb - turning N inside the 130W line and coming onshore between northern CA (no big wind in OR, bad in northern CA) and Vancouver Island (big wind in OR and/or SW WA) overnight Mon Nov 8.  Heed Nat’l Wx Service statements, should they be posted over the weekend.  Moderate-to-heavy rain from northern CA to Vancouver Island.  Patron, be prepared.

 

A second wind producer, but not quite as powerful, is modeled for Wed morning, Nov 10.  This one charts ‘landfall' over southern Vancouver Island.  Definitely windy & quite WET into Wed night.  Veteran’s Day (Thu) could bring on a short rain break before another long-stretch of rain moves into NW WA.  Southwest WA, OR & ID may miss out on the rainy part, staying dry (foggy, in places) through the weekend of Nov 13,14.  

 

The week of Nov 15 still looks very wet, blustery early on, then turning drier & colder.  Before more rain, wind & below-mountain-pass snow return the weekend before Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

We start the roll down hill to end 2021, as the last 2 months of a year ALWAYS seem to fly by fast with holiday speed.  We have lots of weather action on the way.  Here is the latest prognostication.

 

Not much change from our last forecast.  The short break in rain ended this morning, from the south-to-north, as a weak front moves in from the SW.  Not a bad day, overall.  Next system due in late tomorrow.  First to get in on the rain will be Vancouver Is & NW WA, then the "long-front" will bring rain to most of the west coast, Bay area north, late Wed.  It will turn quite WINDY Thu.  Back-to-back WINDY systems will be moving into the PNW, so expect wet, blustery conditions to remain in play on through Sat.  Sunday could be the driest day of the next several.  Not as warm as we hoped, in fact, the cold air on the back side of Saturday's disturbance could drop snow levels to the lowest elevations yet this fall.  Patrons in the northern Puget Sound may see snow/rain mixed.  Just say’n.

 

The week of Nov 8 - 12 has continued to chart as wet & chilly, with periods of wind.  Late week looks rather cold, with a repeat of Saturday’s low snow levels, even south into OR.  Also, CA will likely get more rain late that week, as well.  Ah, November.

 

The second weekend of November continues to trend on the blustery WET side, with chilly temps.  There have been a few outlier model runs pushing most of the precip well north of OR, maybe even keeping all of WA dry, except north of Everett.  Accuracy is crazy bad that far out, but we always present the possibilities for your morn’n beverage enjoyment.  

 

Overall, decent amount of rain and mountain snow is on the way for November.  Normal.