Slushy surprise greets region

It’s been a Forrest Gump couple of weeks, weatherwise, for Southwest Washington residents.

Never quite know what you’re gonna get.

And the pattern may continue a few days more.

Today the region awoke to find bright sunshine and a thick, crusty layer of snow-frozen rain mix caked on roads, walkways and vehicles.

Quite a surprise to most of us, given steady rain for much of New Year’s Day that triggered flooding on several rivers and streams.

A wet, sloppy storm did send large boulders toppling onto state Highway 14 in Klickitat County and a mudslide crashing into a Lake Oswego, Ore., home.

But a follow-up, low-pressure system off the Pacific Ocean slid onshore near Tillamook, Ore., and pushed east past Salem late Thursday. That’s 60-70 miles south of where computer models had pointed weather forecasters, bringing the abrupt change.

“Tracks of these lows are pretty critical,” said Dan Keirns, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland. “Mother Nature drove it just a little farther south. It drug down the cold air, and a little bit of snowfall with it,” he said.

“It wasn’t exactly unexpected,” Keirns noted.

Our area did dodge strong winds associated with the system, which toppled trees and downed power lines in the southern Willamette Valley and central Oregon Coast.

Keirns said forecasters struggled a good portion of Sunday over whether to raise the flag on yet more white stuff for the Vancouver-Portland area. Falling snow levels were included in their reports
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“It turned out to be an interesting start to the new year, already,” he said.

Those lower levels, down to 200 feet elevation, remain relevant. Occasional rain-snow showers should persist in the metro area the next two days, until a stronger weather system arrives on Sunday.

High temperatures in the low 40s or upper 30s should prevent much snow accumulation.

“We might be waking up to some sticking snow the next couple of mornings. But it won’t be anything like what we saw at Christmastime,” Keirns said.