Weather This Week

I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend ! I know I did ! The weather wasn't too bad this weekend. We saw showers and sunshine. Most evenings were nice after the showers died off. This week it looks like we will see more of the same. Showers on and off. I don't really see a change to this pattern for a bit of time. Enjoy the week !

Trail Blazers Make It Better...

This is a weather blog, so here is the weather for the next few days. We'll see showers and then sunny skies to end the week. It looks like rain is back for the weekend. While weather is my main platform here on the blog, I also have the pleasure to be one of the members of the media who cover the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers had an event Tuesday evening at the Oregon Humane Society. TV Sideline reporter Rebecca Haarlow and play by play man Mike Barrett emceed the event. This is what I wrote for another blog and I wanted to post it here too.

Bobby

The Portland Trail Blazers are always trying to "Make It Better" out in the community. Tonight was no different. Blazer Broadcasters Mike Barrett and Rebecca Haarlow emceed an event at the Oregon Humane Society in north Portland. The event was dubbed "Yappy Hour" and featured a starting line up of dogs, cats, and two rabbits available for adoption. Each critter was named after a member of the team. Blazers Joel Przybilla and Steve Blake were on hand to assist with the festivities. The packed room was treated to stats of each available animal, including a Labrador mixed named Greg Oden. The idea for the evening was Rebecca Haarlow's. A self-described pet lover, she wanted to help out the Oregon Humane Society and she felt that this was the perfect way to do so. You can hear my interview with her Rebecca Haarlow Interview.

I highly encourage anyone who is looking for a new pet to head out to the humane society and take a look at all the animals they have. You can find out about OHS from their website by clicking Oregon Humane Society There is a signing bonus for people who do make an adoption this month.

Welcome To Spring

Welcome to spring 2009 ! We passed from winter into spring early this morning around 4:22am. As usual, it was a quiet transition here in the Northwest. Let's hope we start to get some March, April, and May showers because we really need the rain.

I've had a few people ask me if we are done with a snow threat for this year, I think we are, but I can't rule out the possibility of another cold trough coming in from the north and giving us a chance at snow one more time. It's awful hard to get snow here now because the sun is strong enough to heat the atmosphere well above freezing early in the day. Now, if we had something during the night, we could get a dusting. I think we are done, but it could happen.

We are beginning to make the move from a snow threat to the convective season. We will start seeing heavier showers with hail and increased possibility of thunderstorms. The sun's strength and the somewhat cooler air above us help trigger convection and we get heavier showers and hail, sometimes they become strong enough to be thunderstorms. In the summer season, we see storms form over the mountains. Warm moist air from the south is forced over the Cascades and when the air hits the mountains, it is forced to rise. Warm air rising causes instability and we trigger storms. Some of these can become severe. Here in the metro area, we sometimes see these storms drift into the valley. When that happens, it's time to chase. Yes I said chase. I chase thunderstorms !

The weather for the next few days will be showers on and off. A very typical spring like pattern. Happy Spring !

Let The Rain (or whiskey) Fall

So it rained all day on Saturday. I'm glad both my events were indoors. It looked wet outside. Friday and Saturday, KUPL hosted two events featuring Whiskey Falls and The World's Toughest Cowboys. The weather for our event Friday night at Bushwhackers was just awesome. Sunny skies and 60 degrees is hard to beat in here in the northwest. We quickly came back to reality on Saturday where it rained all day. The Portland Airport picked up .40 inches of rain. Like I said, I was glad I was inside. Saturday evening, KUPL rolled over to the rodeo at the Rose Garden. We had a blast pre-show hanging out with the listeners and the rodeo court from the Molalla Buckeroo. The rodeo action was great, a local cowboy even took home the bull riding top prize ! The post show concert featuring Whiskey Falls was amazing. They not only brought the house down with their great music, but were still cool enough to come do an autograph line after the show was over. As they say in the song, Let The Whiskey Fall !

Oregon AMS and QPF !

What a change of weather over the last four days. We've gone from low elevation snow to sunny and somewhat warm temperatures. We'll see more sunshine today and tomorrow. Highs will be pushing 60 degrees. The weekend brings a change. Saturday, the rain returns. Sunday, even more rain. The QPF or Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (amount of precip forecasted to fall) is saying we are looking at anywhere from 9 to 12 inches of water falling from the skies over the next 180 hours. While this will raise creeks and rivers, I don't think we will see massive low land flooding. We're are still very dry around here and a nice soaking will do wonders for our rain totals so far. Another limiting factor of flooding is that the mountains will still hold the snow pack. Temps up there will remain in the 30's. So enjoy the sunshine today and tomorrow !

The Oregon AMS will hold its March meeting this evening at the KPTV TV studios in Beaverton. Doors will open at 6:45pm, meeting will start at 7 ! Steve Pierce of Vancouver will recap the winter we just had. Mark Nelsen, Chief Meteorologist will also recap the east wind event in January. Details are here!

Crazy Spring Weather

Just today, I've seen Snow, Rain, Hail, Wind, Sunshine, and Fog. Welcome to spring in the northwest. We are under the influence of arctic air that is really cold up high in the atmosphere, but is near freezing close to the valley floor. We saw snow this morning with temps right around 32. The sun is high enough in the sky now, that its able to somewhat warm the atmosphere. While it can't warm us into the 70's yet, its still strong enough to fire up some rain and hail showers. The sun causes the atmosphere to become unstable and that fires off the showers. It is still chilly outside, but the forecast calls for nicer and warmer weather starting tomorrow. Welcome to spring in the northwest. If you don't like the weather right now, wait a few minutes, its sure to change !

Will It Snow ?

That's the big question for the weekend ! I think it will snow in the Portland Metro area. We should begin to see the snow fly this evening and then we get into the snow showers until Monday. Most of the metro area will see somewhere around an inch of snow. Higher elevations will see more. The 12Z model runs are indicating that there is enough precip around that even folks living on the valley floor will see sticking snow.

My forecast for the weekend is as follows:

Portland City Proper and surrounding metro areas below 500 feet, will all see sticking snow and accumulations around an inch. You might see more if you are under a heavier shower.

For Folks above 500 feet, I think you're looking at snow depths up to three inches.

We will continue to see cold weather into the week, but the precip begins to die off quickly. Models want to usher in spring in a big way later in the week !

Thanks to Ben in Tillamook who knew the answer to my question on the last post. The official water year begins in October.

Snow Again ?

I've spent the last few hours looking over weather maps, models, text outputs, and pictures. I've also chatted with some of the private mets around town. It looks like we are all thinking snow for this weekend. While we haven't nailed down the amount of snow, all the key factors will be in place for snow. We will have modified arctic air coming south from Canada and we will have precip coming off the ocean. Those two mixing can bring snow to all of the metro area. Again, it will all depend on how much precip we have. As we get closer to the weekend, that side of the equation will become much more clear. As for the rest of the week, we will see showers and colder temps. The first wave of colder air moves in tonight over the area. The snow level will bounce between 1000 and 2000 feet until the weekend. We really do need the rain and snow as we are almost 9 inches of rainfall behind the average for the water year. Since January 1st, we are almost four inches behind. I'm not sure if we will be looking at a drought come this summer, but we need all the rain and snow we can get.

Quiz Time ! Who can tell me when the water year officially begins ? Send me your guess at xBobbyAMSPrez@gmail.com ! Just remove the x at the beginning. The winner will get a shout out on the blog.

Arctic Air Coming Back ?

Oh No Can It Be ? Arctic Air again ? Weather models tonight are hinting that we might get an arctic air intrusion this weekend. It's still too far out to know if we will see anything like we did in December. It appears that it will be cold enough to support snow down to the valley floor. The question as always is, where will the precip go ? I think most areas could see snow and accumulations of an inch. It's very possible. I'll update through the week as we get closer to the weekend !

Bobby