Weather Eye: More rain coming; woolly bears see a mild winter

The rain was slow to advance early in the weekend with only sprinkles and light rain barely enough to settle the dust. Meanwhile, satellite pictures showed an incredibly strong storm several hundred miles off our coast. A classic cinnamon roll wrap around.

It remained far out at sea with rain bands rotating around it. Saturday and a part of Sunday weren’t bad weather. Not like the forecast would have led you to believe. Rains picked up overnight Sunday into early Monday morning along with breezy winds.

We expected about 2 inches of rain from this wet episode Saturday through Wednesday. As of 5 p.m. Monday, only about one-half inch of rain was recorded in Vancouver for the month. That amount is what we ended up with last year for September. Our average rain for the month is 1.50 inches.

Showers and possible thunderstorms are in the forecast through Thursday. With showers some locations get heavy amounts and others much less. I don’t expect any damaging winds, although we could see wind gusts in the 25-40 mph range.

It appears at the time of this writing that the weekend could be mostly dry and mild. We’ll see how the unstable air off the coast develops some small but intense rain bursts. The snow levels in the Cascades may lower Timberline at times. No worries in the passes.

The lighter rainfall amounts as of Monday were of course much heavier at the coast with a good 1 or 2 inches along the beaches and over the coastal mountains. No worries about river flooding as all the waterways were quite low and much of the rain was soaking into the ground.

The first observations from the woolly bears are coming in. So far with only a small sampling, it appears they are looking forward to a mild winter. That may go along with an expected El Nino winter pattern. The cold stays north and the rains stray to the south. Time will tell. Take care.