There’s a saying on the myriad of online Pacific Northwest weather Facebook groups and forums. When it looks like our snow chances are over for the winter, it’s time to ‘stick a Fork in it.’ Here are just a few common derivatives of the “Fork” analogy.
- It’s Fork time
- Fork it
- Don’t Fork it yet, but Spork it
- Break out the Forks
- Bring out the Forks
- Please pass the Forks
- Fork Fork Forkety Fork!!
- Will it make landfall over Forks?
Join PDX WX Analysis or Portland Weather Uncensored for additional Fork-related material. Incredibly, some people were pulling out the Forks as early as late January. I doubt they’ll be doing that again anytime soon.
Last night’s snow:
I went out on a limb yesterday at work by claiming that lowland snow would be over by 10am Friday. Of course, Mother Nature caught wind of my forecast and decided to stick a Fork in my reputation as a decent snow forecaster.
Credit: NWS
The snow was affiliated with a heavy batch of showers that moved inland yesterday late afternoon/evening. These showers decreased the temperature of the lower atmosphere via a process known as “dynamic cooling,” where melting snow lowers the temperature due to the energy needed to change phase from solid to liquid. If you look at the temperature graph below from a weather station in Southeast Portland at SE Glenwood and SE 45th at 262 feet, you can see how temperature suddenly dropped in the afternoon as a batch of showers came through, and then dropped to ~33 degrees by 6:45 as another band of showers came through. Dynamic cooling is a powerful force and has been responsible for many a surprise lowland snow event, particularly in the spring when it is still quite cold aloft.
Credit: Mesowest/National Weather Service
When I walked home from work shortly after 4pm yesterday, there was just some light rain over the area, and snow was the last thing on my mind. I went home and began to unwind after a week at work, but I failed to even glance outside until my coworkers told me it was snowing at their house. When I finally did take a gander, the precipitation had stopped at my location. I live in Old Town near the Willamette and the heaviest precipitation fell to my south, so I figure I probably had a rain/snow mix at best and certainly didn’t have any accumulation. Some other folks did though, which is pretty exceptional for March. Heck, some snow even stuck to the roads! Simply incredible. Looking at the radar and listening to reports, it seems like the heaviest snow began falling over the SW Metro (Tigard, Tualatin, etc.) around 5 pm and moved east of I-205 around 730 or 8.
Snow totals reached 2 inches in the SW and SE metro area, with the highest amounts above 500 feet. Even higher amounts fell over the Western Columbia River Gorge, as there was a report of 4 inches in Corbett.
No ruler but a nice wet lake-effect style dusting in Tigard. Maybe half an inch. Came down quick! pic.twitter.com/NyTFHY8v0t
— andrejs (@gandrejs) March 9, 2019
Looks like we got well over an inch here near Tigard/Lake Oswegi#o pic.twitter.com/kEzvMUTfbI
— Joseph S-J (@josephjaramillo) March 9, 2019
Still snowing in Boring (elevation roughly 500’) pic.twitter.com/tdIan5jx88
— Cassie Wilson (@wilsonxcassie) March 9, 2019
Forecast!
Although there certainly aren’t any flakes in the forecast, it’ll still be a few days before we see some “spring-like” weather. We’ll have calm weather for the rest of today and tomorrow as a ridge settles over the region, but a deep upper-level trough and leading cold front plunging south from the Gulf of Alaska will bring another shot of cold rain, mountain snow, and breezy conditions to the Pacific Northwest on Monday, with post-frontal shows following on Tuesday.
We’ll finally begin to dry Wednesday afternoon and will warm from near 50 to the mid/upper 50s on Friday, and by Sunday, we should finally be close to average, with highs and lows in the lower 60s and lower 40s, respectively!
But of course, I won’t be too surprised if snow decides to make another surprise appearance to begin April. 🙂
Have a great rest of your weekend, and thanks for reading!
Charlie
Featured image credit: WeatherTogether partner Mark Ingalls of Tri-Cities Weather
