Hoping everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and is swinging into the holiday season.
Many places in the Pacific Northwest had a white Thanksgiving, including the higher elevations around Clark County. Some light freezing rain, sleet and snow fell Wednesday evening in the lowlands around Vancouver with perhaps a trace of snow still around early Thursday morning.
A seasonal weather pattern caused some serious freezing throughout the Columbia River Gorge. Cold air trapped in the lower elevations and a warmer layer above — a temperature inversion — facilitated the precipitation as freezing rain and sleet. Where the colder layer was thicker, snow fell.
I enjoyed a white Thanksgiving at Sunriver Resort in Central Oregon, with about a foot or more of snow on the ground. As we left Vancouver early Wednesday morning, it was just a few degrees above my low of 14 degrees. And from Sandy, Ore., through the rest of the trip, the roads were covered with snow. In the two decades or so traversing the Cascade mountains to our traditional Thanksgiving destination, this was a first. And needless to say, the morning low at Sunriver was below zero.
During the recent cold snap in Clark County, albeit of short duration, I received several reports of overnight lows in the single digits. Phil Delany above Dole Valley reported a bone chilling 4 degrees and Tom Dixon in Amboy had 6 degrees.
