Going Dry Soon

The end is near.  What will the weather machine produce as 2025 gets started?  We’ll Mug up and make the attempt to foresee.  Ready?

Dry & chilly through the end of the year.  Rain will return before the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve.  A chilly rain, with snow in the Cascades and even the potential for a bit of The White in the higher hills of the coast range.  Snowy east side and eastern end of the Columbia Gorge.  A second front will rapidly move onshore during the Rose Bowl game, impacting southern OR the most, with areas north of Vancouver WA not likely to get any precip.  Freezing rain possible in the Columbia Gorge early Thu morning, Jan 2, as a warm front moves northeast from southern OR.  That front will continue pushing moisture to the NE well into Fri Jan 3.  WIND will be strong from the east out of the Gaps, both Frazer & Columbia - not an Arctic cold blast, but notably windy.  The Arctic air will remain east of the Rockies.

For Fri, travel may be a mess for Patrons east of the Cascades with warmer air aloft dropping rain into subfreezing surface temps east side.  Some areas with SNOW, others with risk of freezing rain, including Bend/Redmond into John Day area.  Snow across eastern WA well into Sat Jan 4.  Overall, it will be wet west side and snowy east side throughout the first weekend of the New Year.  WINDY.  Sunday Jan 5 does present with less moisture, but not dry.  Patrons in ID, MT, WY will get a decent winter snow storm this coming weekend.  

As we have been noting for a few forecasts now, a DRY period should arrive during the week of Jan 6-10.  That said, one more wet front is charting for Mon Jan 6.  Rain & showers rapidly diminish late afternoon on Mon, then the longest stretch of DRY wx in quite some time will finally set up.  Expect morning fog, or frosty fog in colder locations, along with probable sunshine in the afternoons from Tue Jan 7 through Thu Jan 16.  Exception — Patrons in NW WA, Puget Sound, Vancouver BC region will get a quite shot of rain overnight Jan 9, then back to dry, like the rest of us.

Around the PNW, the air mass will cool a bit more by the weekend of Jan 11,12.  Again, Arctic air will remain east of the Rockies, but a small ’spill over to the west’ will chill down the eastern basins and kick-off an east wind from the Gaps.

Regionally, it will be good to let the soils dry down early in Jan.  Snow in the mountains will keep ski resorts busy, with crystal blue sky above those lifts.  Nice.