Chilling Down

Gift wrapping all done, time to wrap up the old year.  Could colder, low-snow-level weather be in our future?  Mug time.

Rain & showers will be around today through early Saturday, along with a notable east wind out of the Columbia Gorge today.  Other than that, rather tranquil wx conditions are in store for the last weekend of 2023.  Fog may be in play, but other than that, expect temperatures to chill down a few degrees from the mild ones we have experienced the past several days.   New Year’s Eve look dry & chilly.  California will dry out, as well, over the later portion of the weekend.  Damaging high surf is coming onshore along the Golden State coastline.  

New Year’s Day: chilly & dry for the entire west coast, excluding San Diego / Baja, where a system will spin cold shower onshore as the Ball drops in New York City.  

The first, short work week of the New Year may present breezy damp conditions for the PNW overnight Tue the 2nd, with additional showers, at times, through the week.  Some model solutions keep the region dry, except for the far NW corner of WA into BC.  As the week nears an end, we do see a colder pattern beginning to develop following a wet Fri Jan 5, as cold air settles over the eastern Pacific, ushering in lowering snow levels by overnight Fri into Sat, Jan 5,6.  The main Low pressure cell will move into CA, leaving the PNW on the cold side of ’the jet’, which means freezing levels could drop well below the passes, as the weekend of Jan 6,7 turns much colder.  We’ll see.

The week of Jan 8-12 has a lot of uncertainty in the model outlook, but the trend is for on & off rain/showers with chilly temps and even the threat for rain/snow mixed down to the surface late week.  COLD Yukon air mass, with High pressure over 1040 mb may begin to influence PNW weather.  However, lots of “debate” between various long-range model solutions - some keep the colder air bottled up well to the NE, others present a more classic Fraser Gap & Columbia Gap outflows of modified Arctic air by Jan 13,14.  Either way, we forecast a colder, damp cycle moving into play as January 2024 unfolds.  Typical PNW winter weather.  (Note: big winter storm may hit much of the eastern half of the country the week of Jan 8-12.)