We had another bonus day of sunshine Monday after the morning fog dissipated. The reason? Strong gusty east winds scoured the fog away from Clark County. Although I had dead calm here in Salmon Creek, that wasn’t the case in the eastern portions of the county and at the western end of the Columbia River Gorge.
Two Clark County weather observers, Matt Sloan of Vancouver and Tyler Mode of Battle Ground, made their way to Crown Point in the windiest spot of the Gorge on Monday. They clocked winds of over 100 mph with hand-held wind gauges. Tyler recorded a 104-mph gust before his wind gauge stopped working. Matt’s weather station-quality anemometer recorded a peak gust of 115 mph. This weather excitement was on several TV news stations Monday evening.
The wind will be slowly decreasing today but the fog that was in the forecast to linger should stay away another day. Forecast charts show a weak weather system tonight and tomorrow but the rain odds are still quite low. High pressure rebounds Thursday and Friday with more east winds. I’ll take the winds or anything that helps the daylong fog pattern to stay away.
Could we see a change in the weather pattern next week and into early February? Forecast models are persistent about the high pressure to weaken and allow storms to pass through the region. That would be good news, especially if we can build the snowpack. So stay tuned and we will see if we can get out of these winter doldrums.
