First Alert Weather Day for Tuesday morning

Scattered showers will continue until around sunset. Cold air overhead means some of the showers have been heavy with spots of hail and thunder too. We won’t be totally dry this evening, but mainly dry through about midnight. Temperatures remain above freezing through this evening as well so we aren’t worried about icy streets.

The core of the coldest airmass overhead will be moving through NW Oregon and SW Washington later tonight through sunrise Tuesday. The result will be more widespread showers from sometime right after midnight through the first part of the morning commute. With temperatures dropping down near freezing by sunrise, snow could stick just about anywhere. BUT NOT EVERYONE WILL SEE SNOW ON ROADS, IT’LL BE SPOTTY.

Key points...

• This is NOT a snowstorm, not a freezing rain setup, no day-long frozen roads event, etc...
• But we will see a brief period of snow showers late tonight and the first few hours of daylight tomorrow that will stick in many areas. That means snow on some roads for the Tuesday AM commute. The chance of that is higher as you go up in elevation.
• Some areas will get just a dusting on the grass and nothing on roads. Again, this isn’t a widespread “shut down the city” sort of setup.
• A burst of snow showers arrives around midnight or soon after. These snow showers continue through about sunrise or shortly after. A Trace to 2″ is our forecast for all areas around and below 1,000′ west of the Cascades. This includes all parts of the Portland/Vancouver/Salem metro areas.
• Then skies clear and we’ll have a beautiful mainly sunny lunch and afternoon tomorrow. A bright Valentine’s Day with afternoon temps in the lower 40s!

The rest of our 7 day forecast is mainly dry, through at least Saturday. Expect lots of sunshine again Wednesday, then more cloud cover through Saturday. We are in a drier than normal weather pattern through at least the early part of next week.

Cascades: Snow will be heaviest in the Cascades through this evening, then back off to flurries by sunrise Tuesday. A Winter Storm Warning continues up there

Coast Range: A Winter Storm Warning continues up there through the night. Roads turn frozen late tonight and through first hours of Tuesday, then slushy or just wet by Tuesday afternoon.

FIRST ALERT WEATHER: Today is a First Alert WX Day for Cascades, and tomorrow (morning only) is a First Alert WX Day for all areas west of the Cascades. At the latest, it’s over by 11am for promotions and branding purposes, unless morning weather folks decide to cancel it early. For example, if we are wrong and nothing is sticking at 7am...it’s over.

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