WEATHER SUMMARY FOR SOUTHERN OREGON AND NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Right on time, here comes the major storm. Its it a true Pineapple Express, or what is now being called an atmospheric river. Call it what you want, what it means is rain coming in and a healthy amount of it. It also means snow levels will be jumping up in the mountains. The rains are going to be heavy, and in some areas very heavy. Looking at projected totals through Sunday, some areas of Douglas County and the Cascades could see as much as 6 inches of rain. Elsewhere, rainfall totals look to be running from 2 - 5 inches depending on your area. Mountainous terrain is going to see more due to orographic lift. That is where the mountains help wring the clouds out causing more rainfall. Snow levels this morning are near 4500 feet in the Cascades, and near 5000 feet in the Siskiyous. They are expected to rise to 7000 - 8000 feet by this evening. They continue to climb to 9000 feet overnight. Snow levels will remain there until we reach Wednesday / Christmas Eve....and then they will come crashing down abruptly. Be looking for winds as well. These winds could get quite strong at the Coast, in the mountains, east of the Cascades, and in Northern California. Expect wind gusts are to 50 - 60 miles an hour. High wind warnings are up. High surf advisories are up for the Southern Oregon and Northern California coastlines with breakers running 25 - 30 feet from today through early Sunday. This will make being on the beaches and the jetties extremely hazardous. These sea conditions will also shut down fishing for the weekend. We will see rain or the chance for it through Tuesday of next week, and then things get VERY interesting! A cold front is going to push through on Wednesday. It is going to bring a very abrupt change to our weather. Snow levels that will be near 9000 feet early Wednesday morning, will drop to 2500 - 3000 feet just 24 hours later early on Christmas morning. Now, the interesting part is what this means for a White Christmas potential. We will have on going shower activity in the region when this cold air arrives. There will likely still be some post frontal shower activity early on Christmas day. Amounts with these showers look to be on the light side. I do believe there will be enough activity to whiten things up for areas east of the Cascades and down in Northern California. Generally 1 - 2 inches for those areas. For the valleys of Southwest Oregon, this gets a bit tougher. Medfords forecast low on Christmas morning is going to be 35. This temperature suggests that we could see a rain snow mix early on Christmas morning in the Rogue Valley. I am not expecting any accumulation. But, if you got a heavy shower, or a several showers in succession, then I suppose it would be possible to see a slushy build up of way less than inch to occur. If that happens, you better be up really early on Christmas morning to see it. By later in the morning I have no doubts at all that the real snow level with accumulating snow will be 2500 - 3000 feet. As for later on Christmas day, I see us partly cloudy with a slight chance for showers. Looks like Christmas will be more sunny than not. That will be a pleasant change from many years when it is foggy, or cloudy and rather gloomy looking.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 22:49:00 +0000
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