Holidays at the Beach

This article was posted today on my Coastal Living Blog. This is Storm Watching Time!

The holidays at the beach can be either busy or quiet depending on where you go. December is one of the 'stormier' months and tends to attract storm watchers from the inland areas. Winter storms hit the coast with a special kind of vigor that is not often seen in the Portland Metro Area.

The temperature tends to be a bit warmer along the coast as the mighty Pacific Ocean moderates things a bit. But the rain and wind can come like a tropical storm, sans the warm temps of course. This is winter at the Beach.

As for the holidays the usual buzz can be felt at stores and commercial areas. The Long Beach Peninsula however is much more quiet on the roadways during the Holidays than in big cities like Portland and Vancouver. That can be very nice.

Be sure to head out to Long Beach for the New Year's Eve fireworks on the beach. A five minute deluge of mighty booms and sparks will welcome in 2018 at mid night.

That's all I got this time round, see you next year.

Winter Weather will transition to Classic Rain

Rain is washing snow away 10:00 am

Starting all the way back on December 4th when I got the first snowflakes of the season with a series of light flurries to this morning where another 3/4 inch of snow and then ice was deposited on my yard, I have accumulated just over 5 inches of winter precipitation and that is well above my 15 year average of 2.7 inches in December.

The first system brought an inch of wet snow that stayed on the ground for the afternoon but was gone my early evening. The second bout of snow brought me 2 inches of fluffy white snow and howling winds that blew the snow all over until it came to rest on the east side of some immovable barrier like a house or fence. That system had entrenched cold air that kept us chilly and left the snow on the ground for 4 days. Then another blast of arctic air mixed with moisture from the south made way north. The southern half of the metro area got upwards of 5 inches where I got about an inch and a half here in the north. The remnants of that snow and the fresh layer from this morning remain on the ground here on day six but it will be gone by the end of the day. I got 34 degrees showing and it is steady snow eating rain that is falling from the sky.

We are expected to see some locally heavy rain later in the week possibly 2-3 inches and snow levels will rise up above pass levels for a bit before returning to a more typical 2000-3000 feet.  But what of Christmas now just six days on the horizon? Right now the NWS in Portland has us forecast for a cool 38 on Christmas Day the low Christmas morning should be just a tad above freezing. This far out, who knows, a little shift in the atmosphere could drop us back into the snow zone. Statistics do not favor this however.

Let's sit back and soak it all up my friends, soak it up. Ho Ho Ho... Merry Christmas be it white or green :)

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays :)

What a nice Christmas Day, cool and wintry but not dangerously so. It's a chilly but comfy 35
degrees this afternoon on Christmas Day. We should stay foggy but dry over the next few days. Temps will stay in the thirties for the most part unless the mighty El Sol manages to bust through the foggy blanket, then 40s will prevail. This time of year that big 'ole' sun can't get much higher than 22-23 degrees above the horizon so she doesn't have the amps to bust through this overcast.

Hey, it's winter, this is better than rain, not quite as desirable as snow, but Christmas is after all a winter holiday and it should be at least a little chilly, and so it is.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a great day :)

A wee bit of snow...

We awoke to a little bit of wintery precipitation this morning. All over the region a very light dusting of snow and in some areas sleet greeted us. I had less than one half inch on the ground and it quickly washed out as the temperature crested the freezing mark. I think we have warmer air aloft and that means this will all likely washout this afternoon.

Some of the weather models are suggesting a white New Year so we will just have to see how that pans out. This is the thirteenth winter I have recorded the weather at my East Vancouver location and snow at the New year seems to be much more likely than a white Christmas. I have recorded snowfall five times the week of the New Year versus just twice the week of Christmas. What a difference a week makes.

Happy Holidays to all of you.

Drip, drip, drip and maybe a flurry...

So we have been cool and foggy with a persistent dripping from the skies above. After the cold snap many are delighted at the lack of freezing temperatures over the last few days.

Some of the computer models are showing some light snow in the forecast for some areas in the valleys this week. but it is not going to stick around if it even falls at all.

With just a few hours over a week till Christmas, the weather seems to be in a typical mid December pattern. Go ahead and soak it up my friends, soak it up... with only 7 shopping days left... you have little choice.