Portland Weather, Pattern Change Starts Tonight!

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:02]Hello. It is uh midafter afternoon on this Tuesday. I'm meteorologist Rod Hill. I'm coming to you from Vancouver.

[00:00:07]Hope you are enjoying the warm weather.

[00:00:09]A lot of us have reached 80 or better.

[00:00:12]And this is going to be it for a little while. Much cooler weather pattern with highs primarily in the 60s. Begins tomorrow and could stay with us potentially all the way through the weekend. And we're going to get some much needed rain. You know, if we don't get rain uh at PDX here in Portland before midnight tonight, and we may not, um then this will go in the books as the 20 20 uh consecutive day with no measurable rainfall at the airport.

[00:00:41]Again, a dry streak of no measurable rain, reaching 20 consecutive days.

[00:00:46]Really long for this time of the year.

[00:00:48]But here's the upper level low. This is tomorrow morning. So again, the track now is going to bring this right into the heart of Oregon. And so it's absolutely likely that much of western Oregon will see rain at times later tonight into Wednesday morning.

[00:01:04]Hopefully several hours of a good soaking rain. In the meantime, ahead of that, starting later this evening and then continuing overnight, thunderstorms racing south to north up the Cascades.

[00:01:15]They have not started yet. Um and they may not begin until late evening. I'll show you that. So valley rain into Wednesday morning. the big weather pattern changing and cascade thunderstorms absolutely expected. Okay, quick uh thank you to my sponsor the momentous wealth management team. They are financial planners especially can guide you through retirement but also just help you u set up sensible investments and keep track and give you an idea of what kind of income you can make. They are licensed in Oregon and Washington. They say wealth management for real life. I really really like these people. They're very good at breaking things down and and letting you know exactly what's going on. Highly recommend you look them up. Okay. Uh let's get going. First off, let's look and see what's happening. So, if you look at the the satellite picture, not overly impressive. It's this low right here that's turning that we're tracking.

[00:02:11]And it's this band of moisture out ahead of it that will bring the first wave of rain later tonight in the form of some thunderstorms racing up the Cascade. So notice this band of moisture is still offshore. We simply have mostly some high thin cloudiness racing south to north right here. You can see it on the satellite picture up in Oregon. So your early evening plans plans through sundown through nine o'clock likely in in really good shape. Okay, I want to show you a couple things from the local forecast offices. So, this is the National Weather Service forecast office out of Portland. Thunderstorm potential shaded in green. This is basically this evening through 2 a.m. Wednesday. Notice it's bullseyed over the Cascades. Does include areas somewhat out through Wasco County into the Dows.

[00:03:03]Does include the I5 corridor, but not the coast. So, again, we're unstable.

[00:03:08]And anytime you get a big run of thunderstorms along the Cascades, I often remind you that it's at least possible that something bounces back to the west into the Wama Valley. That may or may not happen tonight. Uh I want to run out to Pendleton. We actually have a combo of a wind advisory and a high wind warning. Uh the wind advisory, which is the larger area right here, the lighter tan color, is for gusts picking up late this evening and then at times tomorrow between 30 and 50 miles per hour from the west. And then the wind warnings go into effect early tomorrow morning um through the day Wednesday for potential 50 to 60 mile perph wind gusts. What's going on is that low that's coming in is going to unleash west winds bringing a push of significantly cooler weather and that's going to blow and turn gusty through the gorge and maybe to some extent even over the Cascade Range and then downs sloping into the Great Basin as well. But this is mostly wind shooting through the gorge uh with the wind advisory in the Dows, the wind warning up in Golden Advisory Hermiston warning Pendleton. Basically, you're all looking for wind potential that could be 50 or maybe a little bit stronger at times. So, that's the only watch warning we have right now for any of this.

[00:04:20]There's also wind advisory down in Ontario for some gusty west winds. Okay, so FYI on that for you folks. So, let's talk about wind. This is the National Blended Model Wind model. And this is um this will be 11 o'clock tonight. 11 o'clock tonight. So late evening, we're just starting to see west winds kick through the gorge. And basically, if you look down here where you see the yellow tones, there's some yellow. That's a potential for 50 mile per hour wind gust. Where you see some orange or red, you've got the potential for 60 mile per hour wind gust. Also some noticeably breezy 40 mile per hour winds down in parts of southern Oregon. Okay. But nothing here in the west side in the Wamut Valley or the coast or up into Seattle for that matter. So, let's go and play this. I'm just going to play it into tomorrow morning. So, here's tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. Now, we've got potential for 50 55 mile per hour wind gust, maybe 60, right? Setting over the Dowels, but not overly windy out in the Pendleton yet. There's some higher winds in the southern Oregon Cascades.

[00:05:21]Not much uh really not any noticeable wind other than some breezes 10 to 20 m per hour uh west of the Cascades. And I'll go ahead and play this. And as it goes into the day, here we are at 11 in the morning. So now we've got the full west wind blow shooting through the gorge and then expanding out through the Columbia Basin, which is what you're seeing here. Again, the green tones are 354 mile per hour winds. The orange tones are winds that could be hitting 60 mph. And you can see some strong gusts along some of the ridges and the Cascades as well. And then this large area in southeastern Oregon. This does pick up some west winds maybe to 35 miles per hour over the coast range in Toma County. But again up and down I5 really just 10 20 m per hour maybe a 25 mile per hour west wind gust on Wednesday as this cooler air air starts to move in. Uh I think that was yeah that's as late as that goes. this wind advisory and warning does continue into the evening hours for the areas mentioned. So, we'll watch all of that.

[00:06:21]Okay. Lots of other things to watch.

[00:06:23]This is the 3 kilometer rapid refresh model. It gives you It doesn't go out very far, but gives you great definition. It's interesting because when I worked at KGW earlier this morning, their futurecast model um showed the same thing. It showed nothing down in the southern Oregon Cascades and then just like magic pop right around Mount Hood, which is right here. some thunderstorms firing late this evening.

[00:06:45]So, this is actually 11 pm tonight.

[00:06:47]Thunderstorms around Mount Hood, crossing into the Hood River Valley, and then firing up into the Washington Cascades. And everything, if this is correct, for the most part, all the storms stay near the Cascades and move south to north. Okay. All right. So, let's go and advance this into the morning hours. Here's 4:00 a.m. Notice how the thunderstorms, they just kind of explode up in the northern Washington Cascades. I don't think this is stormy weather here. This is a band of moisture that's coming straight off the Pacific.

[00:07:16]So that helps stabilize it. It's the moisture band ahead of that low.

[00:07:20]Remember I showed you the clouds are offshore right now. Well, here they are bringing likely some widespread rain hopefully for a couple of hours. Not everybody, but this shows good rain at 4 in the morning. Long Beach, Atoria, down into Tieuk, uh Portland, Salem. Some of this rain catching down through Eugene uh as well. And then let's go ahead and play it into uh okay, this is as far as this goes. So this would be midm morning. This be about 8 in the morning. Now you see scattered showers down around Eugene and then offshore down toward the north bend area with a solid rainband moving up central coast of Washington. Rain up in Mal Hood, the gorge pushing up into the Cascades. This is the thunderstorm cluster up in here. Okay. And that's and really once this band of moisture moves through. So this shows by eight o'clock in the morning, it's primarily south of Portland. It's just all scattered shower activity. And the number of scattered showers may in fact become fewer and fewer during the day. So the point is most of the rain we're going to get here on the west side will come well after midnight tonight into the early sunrise hours and then quickly fizzle into scattered showers tomorrow morning. And through that time frame, that's mostly what you're looking at here. This shows it could be a half of an inch of rain, maybe 610 up around Atoria. Shows just over a quarter in Portland. Shows about 2/10, maybe less than that down in Eugene. Shows about a quarter of an inch down in the uh Curry County area down in um southwestern Oregon. And with those thunderstorms really exploding in the Washington Cascades, that's where you get over an inch of total moisture. You can see it up there. Okay. All right. Uh All right. Let's look at the actual flow pattern. Boy, a lot going on. I mean, it's not going to be the biggest weather event we've ever seen, but just getting some rain is huge because we've been dry again today, the 20th straight day.

[00:09:13]Here's the upper level low tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. right over us.

[00:09:17]Again, that's going to be likely rain.

[00:09:19]And if anything, the rain might be even more solid and widespread up and down the Oregon coast, up and down all of the W Valley up into the Cascades and what that modeling even showed you. Okay, but you can see this moving through central Oregon. There it is pushing off. And then by uh 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon, that upper level axis is swimming is swinging into Montana. We get rising heights pressure-wise and we get stabilization. So again, most of the rain is going to come the first half of tomorrow morning that we end up with.

[00:09:48]Okay, but I want to go ahead and play this because I have a chance of rain in each at least a chance of a shower in each 24-h hour period all the way through Saturday. So we talked about Wednesday. Here comes Thursday. Now, if the modeling is correct, Thursday morning, all dry here in Oregon, let me back this up. Well, maybe even dry primarily even up in Seattle. Okay, but then once we get late day and then getting into the evening, see, there's a kind of a flattening flow and there's a little surge of moisture with a weak system passing up through Washington.

[00:10:21]May or may not just clip us down here in Oregon, but there will be some showers, I would think, late day Thursday and Thursday evening up around Seattle and down through Olympia, Tacoma. uh one would think. Okay. And then Friday, here comes a little trough developing during the day. This is getting into midday Friday. Okay. Here's the trough. That's likely rain up in Washington, no doubt.

[00:10:43]And I think likely showers coming into Portland and maybe as far south as Salem. Uh basically the northern third of Oregon would have a good chance of scattered showers. You drop near to south of Salem, the chance of rain probably not nearly as good. This is mostly a system near the Columbia River and up to the north. But as I play it into Saturday, here's this low here. And again, this is a cold low. That's a 546.

[00:11:06]Good grief. Low. A 546 low up in here.

[00:11:09]The snow level would be 2,000 ft. Good grief. All right. The low kind of expands and the upper level trough kind of surges southward all the way down to California. Okay. So, there's a better chance of some rain Saturday than there is Friday across much of our area. And again, Washington, much wetter than Oregon, which you can see it right there. And then by the time we get to Sunday, that moves into Idaho. Here comes some ridging offshore. And then we're back into some dry, warming weather for several days. I'm going to show you the reflective futurecast. This is rain futurecast, if you will, uh, with the American GFS model starting Thursday morning. Okay, so Thursday morning, showers up around the Canadian border. Otherwise, we're we're mainly dry. There's a few showers up in northern Washington, but really not much going on until later in the day. So, here is 5:00 p.m. Chance of showers north Oregon coast around Portland, maybe Salem. This shows Eugene, Corvalis, Roseber, all dry farther south. Scattered showers mostly, in fact, the mountains of uh the Cascades in Washington. Not a whole lot really in the Puet Sound. But the shower chance continues to be near Portland up to the north into Friday morning. Here comes a bigger surge of moisture. This is Friday am midday Friday coming into Friday afternoon at um 5:00 pm. Again, Eugene maybe nothing. The rain chances might be online from Tilluck to Portland and just barely sagging towards Salem. It's mostly Columbia River northward. Okay, now it's played into Saturday. You see, now here's a a bigger push of moisture raining all of western Washington if this is correct. Saturday morning and much of Oregon all the way down to Eugene picking up probably what would be some very light rains. Nothing down in Medford. Okay.

[00:12:53]So, yeah, let me back this up. So, Saturday potentially. Here's Saturday at um midm morning. There's rain late morning. Uh there's rain early afternoon. So, that's a wet Saturday morning potentially and drying in the afternoon. There's a little bit of rain coming through even Saturday evening.

[00:13:13]one little bit and then that drops out of here and then I think that's it. Then we're all dry. Okay. I didn't really see that. I'm not sure if that's going to hold together or not. That's some rain, scattered shower threat continuing Saturday overnight and Sunday morning.

[00:13:24]We'll see. That would be the last bit of it. Okay. Uh well, here are the temps uh coming up on 4:00. 90 in Bend, 90 in Burns. Talked about the warm weather on on KGW this morning in central and eastern Oregon today. 86 in Medford, Portland, 82. I think we're at least going to hit 83 today, if not warmer. 79 in Salem. Probably going to hit 80°. So, let's go around the horn. Let's start in Eugene. One of one of you watches me from Eugene and you mentioned that and I appreciate that. Um, so here we go.

[00:13:53]Chance of showers and breezy tomorrow.

[00:13:55]The morning rain coming through again.

[00:13:57]More rain even in the morning to the north into Portland and less down into Eugene. And then a mainly dry Thursday and mainly dry Friday. And then there's a shower chance Saturday. Remember Saturday was where we showed the the rain up and down western Oregon and Washington. It's possible that areas south of Salem don't get any rain Thursday and Friday, then see just a dab on Saturday. Okay. But there will be some rain down all the way through the Wama Valley overnight tonight into early Thursday morning. There's the cool down.

[00:14:28]60°ree temperatures. Okay. All right.

[00:14:32]Salem is going to be similar. Rain in the morning, breezy winds. Remember 10 25 mile per hour winds tomorrow.

[00:14:39]Thursday could be dry in Salem with the rain chance mostly Portland Columbia River northward. Same thing on Friday.

[00:14:45]Chance of rain on Saturday. There's the cool down. Okay. All right. Seattle going to be a lot of rain. Th Well, they say Thursday 61 degrees. I would think there's a chance of rain. Remember late in the day Thursday up in Washington? I would think so. Certainly Friday and Saturday then after that drying out relatively cool. Okay.

[00:15:04]Uh, Ben, big cool down. 63 tomorrow, 73, 68, 57. Even with that system on Saturday, this does not show it to be strong enough to push moisture over the Cascade. So, if that's true, once you folks have showers tomorrow in central Oregon, you're all dry. Okay. All right.

[00:15:21]Uh, Atoria, hello.

[00:15:24]Breezy, maybe some gusty winds of 30 or better, even 35 along the coast late tonight into tomorrow morning. Chance of showers along the coast each day into Saturday. That makes sense because now you're north. Same thing with Portland.

[00:15:35]Same thing with areas along the Columbia River. Okay. All right. North Bend, now you're drying out. Decreasing clouds Thursday, Friday, maybe some rain Saturday, but you could stay dry that far south. And then Sunday, Monday, all dry. Okay. All right. Here is my Portland 7-day forecast courtesy of Hazel Tire Pros up here in Vancouver off of Highway 99.

[00:15:57]We're going to keep a threat of mid to late, mainly late evening thunderstorms moving into the valley tonight. They may all stay over the Cascades. We talked about that. We have the rain coming in after midnight. We have rain on the radar 4, 5, 6:00 tomorrow morning. By 8:00 in the morning, it's mostly scattered showers. And by the afternoon, there's a scattered shower chance, but not much going on. 65 the high. Late day shower threat on Thursday, mainly Portland and northward. shower threat on Friday, mainly Portland and northward.

[00:16:28]Not much rain either day. A lot of dry time. Saturday, remember there could be a period of rainy weather, especially in the morning. And then I think we are dry. Uh that showed that lingering showers Saturday night. We'll see.

[00:16:38]Otherwise, Sunday afternoon's dry, still 67, and then we're back to sunshine at 72 on Monday. All right, that's your update. Uh I don't expect there to be certainly not off of the Cascades severe weather tonight. I know we're in that convective outlook. I know there could be thunder and lightning over the Cascades. We think there will be, but the instability parameters really aren't that low. So, uh, so we'll see. I'm Rod Hill. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for subscribing. When you subscribe, you are u notified if you allow notifications when I post. Talk to you later.