Ice storm in progress as metro area remains frozen through Saturday morning

Unfortunately, this morning’s forecast is working as expected.

what is happening now

• The lower elevations of northwestern Oregon and southwestern Washington are plagued with chills, with sub-zero temperatures everywhere inland from the coastline.
• Entire coastline rises below freezing
• The Cascades are warming rapidly, and even Government Camp will warm to about 40 degrees in the next few hours. Santiam Pass jumped from 20 to 40 between 6-7am. The cold is shallow. Silver Falls State Park is in his mid-40s at 1,600 feet elevation.
• Roads are covered with glaze ice in most metro areas.
• Freezing drizzles and showers roam the area

A metro area surrounded by cold air

This setting continues until the evening when the shower tapers off. Tonight should be mostly dry, with the exception of areas with a freezing drizzle.

The extreme eastern winds in the western canyon and metropolitan area last night and this morning were stronger than ever before. Troutdale Airport surpassed her fifty, which is unusual. At Corbett he sees gusts of 88 degrees, which I think is the highest in the last 15 years.

Yesterday my Vista House wind sensor went off. I mean, it really just ripped off the building. You can see that the observed value suddenly becomes zero. RIP

Future plans

• All areas from Salem to Longview (including the Metro area) will remain icebound until sunrise on Saturday
• Daytime temperatures are well above freezing everywhere except for areas east of Interstate 205 to the Columbia River Gorge and just north of the Columbia River to around the Powell/Foster Road.This will be the last place to unzip…probably after 3pm
• Warming will be dramatic in the Valley, West Metro, South Metro, and South Washington tomorrow from midday to afternoon. A southerly wind can jump the position from 32 degrees to 55 degrees in an hour or so. Road conditions should be much better in these areas towards the end of the day and on Christmas Eve (after sunset).
• This means many of the metropolitan areas will end with an ice storm tomorrow at noon/pm
• Moderate to heavy rain tomorrow morning through late afternoon. The result is the heaviest ice glazing to date in areas that are still frozen. It’s probably the central/east subway and it’s in a canyon. But even in those areas, temperatures should be above freezing at some point Saturday night. Assume the roads are frozen all night tomorrow night.
• Finally, light showers are expected on Sunday, with temperatures expected to hover above freezing throughout the day. Cold easterly winds have returned, but temperatures are high enough to avoid freezing rain
• The Columbia River Gorge will remain frozen east of Troutdale until Sunday, when the thaw begins (slowly) on Monday.

The next 24 hours are the weather model’s crunch time. They’re pushing warmer air into tomorrow, and most people think we’ll have freezing temperatures across the metropolitan area by late tonight. it’s not happeningAs long as the east current from the canyon continues, we will remain frozen. Here is an example. GRAF short range model thinks freezing temperatures in Portland by tonight

The Euro has been very relentless in pushing southwards into metropolitan areas by noon or early afternoon tomorrow. By 4pm there is a southerly gradient of about 4 mbar from Eugene to Olympia. It can take the cold out of the subway. It’s going to be quite a battle between the receding cold air masses and the surging southerly winds, but I’m conservative and don’t think it will happen until the evening on the eastern subway. We’re assuming. So we’re predicting a fair bit of freezing eastern metro tomorrow.

As luck would have it, it’s correct. If so, who would complain that it got warmer “faster”? A little Christmas miracle could happen tomorrow night in the form of warmer temperatures and southerly winds!

It airs tonight at 12pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm and 11pm.

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