Weather Eye: Weather this week calls for sunglasses – and warm coat

Skies slowly cleared early Monday, welcoming the sunshine back with blue skies. After more morning clouds early today, skies will clear again and we enjoy more sunshine. East winds will begin to blow later today and be quite gusty east of Interstate 205 for a couple of days.

Expect frosty conditions each morning this week except where that east wind is blowing, it may feel colder due to the wind chill but it won’t be freezing like the west side. No rain this workweek, how about that?

The next signs of rain will be this weekend, maybe as early as Friday night. This is a cold weather system so plenty of mountain snow and a chilly rain here in the lowlands will bring highs down from the mid-50s to mid-40s and some snow on our foothills.

So, a taste of early spring this week before returning to winterlike weather by the weekend. I thought maybe we could bounce into the low 60s on Wednesday but the lingering air mass we had over us last weekend kept plenty of cold air aloft, so enjoy the sunshine and pretend it is 65 or 70 degrees. At least the sunglasses will be on.

It will be frosty in the early morning hours as the kids wait for the school bus, but I doubt many will wear their jackets due to the predicted afternoon sunny skies. I remember those days but I’d be freezing now without one.

This winter — December through February — so far has been quite mild across the Northern Hemisphere, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They say that January was the warmest January on record for the entire earth. We sure had plenty of extremely cold air over northern Canada and Alaska this winter, but it sure avoided us.

Portland has its fourth-warmest winter thus far since records were kept at the airport in 1940. Vancouver’s winter is not in the top 10 as our records go back some 140 years.

Don the sunglasses and look snappy this week as the sun reigns after any early clouds today.