Some of us see snow tomorrow and Monday morning

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - It was a record-cold morning for us today in Portland- 18 degrees at the airport! That breaks the previous record of 23 degrees from 1969. The good news is we saw mostly sunny skies this afternoon and that meant a ton of melting for our area roads. Our high temperatures today were in the low to mid 40s.

Get ready for another batch of exciting weather tonight and tomorrow morning! Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be nearly as exciting as the snowstorm we got earlier this week. We’re talking about “conversational snow” for most of us.

The wet system is already over the north coast as of 9:30 p.m. As the system pushes inland, that’ll change over to snow for the mountains and for those of us around 1,000 feet. The best shot at seeing snow in the lower elevations is going to be east of I-205 and north of Portland in Clark County- locations that will be tougher for the milder south wind to reach. Otherwise it looks like most of us along the I-5 corridor (especially south of Portland) will see things switch over to rain by sunrise. Many of us in the Portland metro- especially south and west sides- may not see any snowflakes at all. The National Weather Service backed off their Winter Storm Warning to a Winter Weather Advisory for the metro area, so that’s a promising sign if you don’t want to see more snow. That being said- our local hills, the mouth of the Gorge and north along I-5 into Washington could see a few inches of wet snow accumulate. This could make already icy roads a bit more slick tomorrow morning- but as we see temperatures warm into the 40s again and some pops of sunshine in the afternoon, minimal accumulations should melt fairly quickly.

After the initial push of precipitation in the morning, everybody will transition to spottier showers in the afternoon. Any rain we get will also help to melt things off.

Lots of snow is heading to the Cascades! The ski resorts should see another 5-12″ with this system coming through tonight and tomorrow.

Another surge of precipitation comes through early Monday morning, and that one is tough to forecast. It looks like we’ll be seeing the return of a chilly east wind (although not nearly to the same degree as early in the week) which could help drive some of that precipitation as snow down to the valley floor. Most of us will be above freezing as the showers come through Monday morning, so once again I think what a lot of us will see is “conversational snow” that shouldn’t impact our lives, but some folks will see wet snow accumulating. Once again we warm up into the 40s during the day on Monday, and with the transition to rain showers, any snow accumulation will be short-lived.

Continuing precipitation, clouds and the return of the south wind into Tuesday morning should keep our temperatures above freezing and make it tougher for us in the lowest elevations to see snow, but morning snow is possible for some of us. Then plan on light rain showers for the rest of the day Tuesday.

We’ll dry out on Wednesday, then see more wet systems the rest of the week and into next weekend. Overall, temperatures are staying below average. We’ll watch Friday and Saturday mornings for another potential mixed shower or snow chance.

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