Batten down the hatches, Martha, she’s a-fixin’ to blow.
“It’s going to be blustery Monday,” said Shawn Weagle of the National Weather Service in Portland. He said winds could gust to 45 mph.
He said a cold front from the north will make things winterlike today and Tuesday.
Expect a quarter-inch to a half-inch of rain today and more on Tuesday, Weagle predicted Sunday night.
“We might even see a thunderstorm of two on Tuesday,” he said.
He said snow levels might dip to 2,000 feet and some of the hills in Clark County could get a dusting.
Isn’t this a bit unusual?
“It’s not all that unusual,” Weagle said, noting spring is a transitional season and can have both “winterlike air masses and summerlike air masses.”
For instance, he said hail could fall today or Tuesday and noted that hail fell at Portland International Airport on April 27 and 29.
Vancouver’s Steve Pierce agreed that the weather might be unpleasant for a while.
“This is an unusually strong storm for early May and looks more like something we would see in February or early March,” Pierce wrote in an e-mail. He is an executive board member of the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society.
“Computer model guidance suggests we may see high temperatures struggling to reach 50 degrees early this week. If that is the case, we would be a full 15 degrees below normal for high temperatures. Snowfall levels will also be very low for this time of the year, with snow possible down to as low as 1,500 feet to 2,000 feet, “ Pierce wrote. “This is rare for May, but not entirely unheard of. In the spring of 2008, snow flirted with the (area) on several occasions in April. As a matter of fact, some locations locally recorded their latest snowfall on record that spring. … After a wetter than normal April, it looks like the cool, wet trend will continue for most of this week.”
Where’s the good news? Weagle offered this: “We might luck out and get some high pressure (and warmer temperatures) later in the week.”
