Weather Eye: Winter officially arrives, with seasonal highs to follow

The recent bout of rain was an interesting ordeal. The narrow band of the atmospheric river stalled just to our west and north, sparing Clark County from steady excessive rains. We did receive 2 inches of rain as of Saturday afternoon in Vancouver, but it came in spurts.

Vancouver was lucky as the AR oscillated gently from north to south. Clark County received our share a little at a time. No complaints here.

In other communities such as the coast and Puget Sound, between 3 and 5 inches fell in a single day. The Willapa Hills to our northwest had more than a foot of rain out of this particular bout.

And what about the warm temperatures? On Friday, Vancouver tied the record high of 59 degrees, just shy of 60 degrees. Autumn left on a warm and somewhat wet note.

Winter officially arrived Saturday, and it will feel more like the season as our highs drop into the lower 40s for most of the upcoming week. At least we will dry out before the chance of showers goes up midweek.

With a cooler air mass, the snow levels will be quite low. As light rain showers fall here in the city, snowflakes will float through the air around 1,500 feet or slightly lower. Our foothills will get a little white for the holidays. Sorry — no white Christmas here in the lowlands unless there is a miracle on 34th street.

The good news is that our daylight hours will begin to get a tiny bit longer. Saturday was the darkest day of the year, especially with the clouds and rain. Darkness arrived early, it seemed.