Valley showers, mountain snow winding down Monday

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Snow is really coming down now in the Cascades! Models are indicating we could see another foot or so of accumulation through tomorrow morning around Government Camp. Cascade passes will definitely be snow-covered for the next 24 hours. Since this morning, about 5 inches have already piled up around the ski resorts.

We’ve seen scattered showers in the metro area, and some folks in our local hills and in the Gorge saw graupel or hail coming down. It’s possible we get some mixed showers at lower elevations tomorrow morning. Showers will wind down at some point Monday afternoon, and it’ll be dry until Tuesday afternoon. Monday’s high temperatures will be in the mid 40s.

Even more snow is on the way for the mountains! Another foot to two feet of snow is likely to accumulate thanks to the cool, wet systems that come through Tuesday afternoon through the end of the week. We could see heavy snow coming down on Wednesday. It looks like snow levels bottom out around 1,000 feet Tuesday morning, but we’ll be out of precipitation by then, so no real risk for lowland snow. The big soaker system is coming Wednesday, but snow levels will rise to about pass level when that happens.

The best shot at some snowflakes mixing in below 1,000 feet around the metro (or “chunky rain”) will be Tuesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday morning. For now, it doesn’t look like weather will impact those of us in the lower elevations west of the Cascades over the next week. Just get used to mid-winter temperatures with lows in the 30s and highs in the 40s this week, along with plenty of wet weather as we wrap up November.