Weather Eye: Hope for upland snow this winter

Saturday was sure a dark and gloomy day, with drizzle and chilly temperatures. Hopefully, as another weather system moves through today, it will break up the inversion and cool off the mountains and warm us up.

All last week the higher elevations had highs in the 55-70 degree range while the plains saw the 30s and 40s. Not to mention the pervasive fog.

I still do not see much “weather” heading our way this week. High pressure will dominate and we will see some showers today and maybe Monday but the fog will return to some locations as well as the east winds. Those winds were strong last week but mainly confined to the Gorge with speeds upward of 90 mph.

The Cascades snow pack continues to dwindle — only about 30 percent of normal. The northern Cascades are doing much better. If you remember, we had a similar situation last year at this time but a few big storms in February and March brought things back to seasonal averages. Hope to repeat that this winter.

We may have a pattern change by the weekend and continuing into the following week with rain and mountain snows. No snow or ice in our future here in the lowlands. Is wintry weather over for us? Too early to say for certain, but it isn’t looking good at this point. Last February, we had a blast of arctic air and snow.

It’s col by me

The weather word for the day is “col.” What does that mean? It is the region of relatively low pressure between two anticyclones. And just so you understand anticyclones here is the National Weather Service definition: “An anticyclone (that is, opposite to a cyclone) is a large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.”

And if you are a mountaineer, “col” is also a pass or depression in a mountain range. Learn something every day, right?

We will chat again on Tuesday. Be safe.