Quite an interesting and robust snow event we had early Monday, wasn’t it? When I wrote my Sunday column Saturday afternoon, forecast models had a hint of wet snow showers scattered about but not until Sunday afternoon, before they had developed a tight closed low off the Oregon Coast to our south.
That was important because the center of a robust storm making landfall south of Astoria near Tillamook to Lincoln City was ideal to keep us on the cold side of the storm and to draw cooler air from the north and east into the storm. And what kept the snow falling for several hours was the intensity of the precipitation. Moderate to heavy rain pulled the colder air to sea level and, bingo, we had a late spring snowstorm. Imagine if this had been January.
Anyway, it was the Portland airport’s heaviest snow for so late in April since records were kept in 1940. Downtown Portland measured 2 inches of snow, making it the heaviest snowfall so late in the season and records there go back to the 1800s.
Snow amounts here in Clark County ranged from a couple of inches near the Columbia River to 4-7 inches in Felida and Salmon Creek and upwards of 11 inches in the higher foothills. Everyone got snow and most areas had snow-covered roads at daybreak Monday. Add in heavy wet snow on trees causing them to sag onto power lines made a frenzy of scattered power outages. It wasn’t only evergreen trees but newly leafed out deciduous trees that collapsed and snapped due to the heavy snow.
