A welcome relief from the snow and ice Monday as temperatures warmed back to seasonal normals and higher. Well, sort of. Let me explain before I say afternoon temperatures were in the low 50s over much of the county.
Southerly winds were blowing and gave many of us highs in the 50s and I must say here in the Salmon Creek/Felida area where I was Monday, it felt almost like spring. That’s 40 degrees warmer than the deep freeze of last week. As I write this column Monday afternoon, it was 53 degrees outside my window, while in downtown Vancouver it was over 10 degrees cooler. How can that be, you say?
Yep, those persistent east winds were still blowing cool air out of the Gorge. It has taken what seems like forever to get back to somewhat of a normal weather pattern. The storms have indeed brought warm air aloft with snow levels well over 5,000 feet. The weather systems that have provided the rain the past week reached our coastline and then moved straight north drawing that cold east wind westward. In a couple of days, we all should have similar temperatures regionwide.
The cold air in the Gorge will finally get scoured out this week and residents along the river and especially in the Camas and Washougal areas will get snow and ice melted away. Haven’t seen such a cold spell hang on like this for decades. Usually, we get a one- or two-day punch of snow and ice then high pressure east of the mountains gets replaced with lower pressure, ushering in the temperate west and south winds.
