Christmas Buckets

Yeah, ten ’til Christmas.  And, ten days ’til Nature tips the ‘bucket’ over the PNW again.  Let’s take a look ahead, shall we?  ☕️

Overall, the region will be dry through this weekend, Dec 16,17.  Biggest issue will be dense FOG, esp south of Salem and portions around the Puget Sound.  An east wind will kick-up during the weekend, keeping Portland area sunny & bright (although chilly with the wind factor); coastal areas will be absolutely stunning --> sunny & mild.  

Next week will present a few showers around the PNW as a fairly weak storm moves into California, or north along the OR coast.  Our moisture will spin up from the south.  By late Tue, it should dry out again, as the CA storm shifts farther south.  Rain likely in San Diego, late week.  We will continue dry into the big holiday weekend, other than a quick shot of clouds & showers overnight Fri for WA/BC border area.  Sunday, Christmas Eve, is trending dry.

🎄 Christmas Day.  My, oh my, will the wx change quickly.  The dry cycle will turn to heavy rainfall across the PNW as Christmas Day unfolds.  By the evening, heavy rain and blustery winds will dominate the night.  The wx will be audible -> rain on the roof, winds howling.  Buckets of Rain. Tue & Wed Dec 26,27 will be extremely WET & stormy, with the heavy rain expanding from the Bay Area in CA up into Canada.  We may get a tiny, few hour break from the steady rainfall early Wed the 27th, before what could become a MAJOR WIND EVENT Wed night into Thu, along with a return of heavy rainfall.  

For a week now, models have presented a deep Low developing far to the west of northern CA, sweeping NE to the west of OR & WA sometime the 27th-29th.  Latest model solutions continue to indicate a very deep Low (962-965 mb !!) approaching the PNW before ‘filling in’ before landfall well north of Vancouver Island.  Lots of variants to be concerned with here, mainly the track.  The system - should it verify - will be SO LOW in barometric pressure, that the wind field will be large & powerful.  If it remains well off our coast, we’ll be getting wet but not blown away, figuratively speaking; should it track closer Vancouver Is or NW WA, well, it would produce significant, powerful wind gusts.  Too early to formalize a forecast, just a ponder point for now.  We have a week or so for the computers to nail this down.  Be aware for now.

Either way, RAIN will continue ‘by the bucket’ around the PNW through the week after Christmas.  Oh, and it will turn much colder, as well.  The air mass modeled to set-up over the Gulf of Alaska could be the coldest of the season, ushering in low elevation snows around the PNW & northern CA.  New Year’s Eve could be interesting.

Repeat:  “A guy whose troubles are all behind him is probably a school bus driver.”