Snowing in Portland!

This will just be a quickie, as I’m getting up early tomorrow to go skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows. But after getting scattered, non-sticking snow showers for much of the day, the Portland metro area is finally seeing a decent shot of lowland snow as a weak band of showers swings through the area!

Here’s a picture I took around 9:30 pm outside my home in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Portland. I believe our elevation is approximately 200′. We had about a half inch of snow at the time, and snow continued to fall  until approximately 10:15. I’m too lazy to check right now, but I expect we’ll have close to an inch when I measure the snow in the morning. Other parts of the metro area may end up with 3+ inches, with the highest amounts occurring further east and above 500 feet.

This band of snow was actually associated with a very weak and localized remnant of the surface low that made landfall earlier today along the southern Washington Coast. You can see the counter-clockwise rotation of the shower bands about the center of the low.

Expect snow to taper off momentarily as this disturbance continues to trek southward and dry, easterly winds through the Gorge help decrease snowfall intensities. Temperatures will drop into the upper 20s tonight, so prepare for extremely slick roads if you are out and about Monday morning. Monday will be cold and clear with highs in the mid-upper 30s, and we could drop into the upper teens in many places Tuesday morning.

There’s a slim chance we may see even more of the white stuff Tuesday night/Wednesday morning as another low pressure system drops down from the NW, but models have been inconsistent with the location of this feature and thus the distribution of lowland snow. I’ll keep you posted!

Did you get any snow at your house? Let us know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,
Charlie