Light rain at times through Friday, but mainly west of I-5

Rain has returned late today and it’ll be sticking around for a while. A weather system is pushing mild air and moisture north into the Pacific Northwest. It was first aimed at California earlier today.

This system will become stationary and linger along the coastline all the way through Friday. Expect mainly cloudy skies with light rain at times the next two days. Rain will not be heavy at all, in fact an hour or two could be dry at times. Most of the rain will be along the coast and even offshore. Basically if you live west of the Cascades, you can expect a lot of gray but not all that much rain the next few days. Most of it in the valleys will tend to fall west of I-5. We’ll see less than 1″ through Friday along I-5 and around 2″ or so in the Coast Range and along the beaches.

The warmer air coming in also means whatever falls will be in the form of rain in the Cascades and temperatures are already above freezing in the passes this evening. That said, Cascade ski areas will be dry at times tomorrow and Friday too. We don’t expect a big washout rain-wise in the mountains.

The main jet stream continues to be aimed to our south through the holiday weekend, so showers continue. The entire weekend won’t be a soaker, but showers are likely each day. The best chance for slightly drier conditions will be on Monday.

A slightly cooler pattern and possibly much wetter conditions arrive the middle of next week. We may finally see some heavy snow in the Cascades at that point.