Oregon Severe T-Storms Possible, Portland Thunder Chance Tonight!

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:02]Hi everybody. Might be a little bit of back uh ground noise. I'm coming to you.

[00:00:06]What time is it right now? It's 10:30 in the morning from the KGW weather center which is in the newsroom. I want to talk about this thunderstorm threat that we have firing up around our state again later today into tonight. This is going to be a significant thunderstorm outbreak for parts of southern central eastern Oregon. A good chance along the Cascades. A decent chance of Mount Hood.

[00:00:28]decent chance of moving up over the gorge and into Washington. So, we're still dealing with the same low that was the trailing low behind the front that gave us rain on Monday, Memorial Day, remember? Well, this low has been stationary right here off the coast of California and into the Lake Tahoe area uh for the last couple of days. And then the circulation, the counterclockwise flow around this comes up across Nevada and into Oregon. And this is what still being uh will be going on later today.

[00:00:58]So there is a Portland and a Wamut Valley in general thunderstorm threat this evening which I'll talk about and also and concerning the chance of severe storms um mainly near and east of the Cascades once we get into later today and this evening. So uh all of the tea leaves say this is a pretty good outbreak without doubt. So, real quick, I want to thank the folks at Momentous Wealth Management, Wealth Management for Real Life, uh, licensed in Oregon and in Washington, the sponsor of my, uh, channel. Here is courtesy of KGWTV, the futurecast model, 6:00. Look at the thunderstorms in Bend. Here we are at 8 8:30 tonight. Here's a thunderstorm cluster moving up through the Dows.

[00:01:40]Here's some weakening storms along the Cascades. And if the modeling is correct, the storms don't really bounce over the Cascades. But right here tomorrow morning at 8:00, this is a little bit of light rain that actually comes in from a Pacific front. I'm going to play this one more time so you can get a good look at what's going on. So, uh, here we go. This now you're looking at Friday afternoon. We get increasing sun, but let's play this one more time.

[00:02:03]Okay, here we go. 2:00 this afternoon, storms firing in southern eastern Oregon. This is the cluster that moves into Bend around 6:00 p.m. Again, maybe some severe weather with this and the possibility that some of this action this evening bounces over the Cascades again. And maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. That's usually the call uh in this type of a setup. Now, right here, did you see the movement coming in off the Pacific? That's that weak front Friday morning. That is not convective.

[00:02:31]It's just a little bit of light rain.

[00:02:32]And then as we go through the day on Friday, the rain chance ends going into the afternoon and eventually we'll see the clouds start to break up and then we're off and running with a nice weekend. You can also see Friday afternoon a scattered storm threat in parts of southeastern Oregon, but for the most part we'll be out of the woods.

[00:02:48]Okay, let's talk thunderstorm potential and concerns. This is uh the graphic posted on the Portland National Weather Service uh homepage. And what you're looking at here, everything shaded in green is in a convective outlook, which means the potential of thunderstorm development. Notice this does include Kelso, Portland, Vancouver, down into Albany, Eugene, all the way down south in southern Oregon. But I don't believe we're going to we're not going to see storms kind of birthe from nothing here on the west side of the Cascades.

[00:03:19]we would get storms if some of the action pushes or triggers over the Cascades and then into the valley. If that makes sense. Okay. Um and a reminder that when we talk about severe weather, by definition, it basically means you've got winds gusting to 58 miles per hour or higher. So nearing 60 miles per hour from the thunderstorms and you've got one inch hail. Now often with this comes, of course, deadly lightning concerns and a ton of torrential rain. And we think that's going to be the case. This is kind of cool because we don't see this very often. See the yellow? So, the weather services wording here is a slight risk for severe thunderstorms. I would phrase it a reasonable chance that storms could turn severe, meaning producing strong, gusty, damaging winds potentially up to 60 m hour with some hail. But what we don't see very often is we are the best chance here in Oregon and Washington later today into tonight to have strong thunderstorms in the entire country. You don't see that very often. Usually the the main risk area is down here in Texas or Tennessee or Georgia, but not out here where we are. So that's a little unique. This thunderstorm threat primarily except for southeastern Oregon Friday afternoon moving out uh of our area. So here is I showed you the the KGWTB futurecast. This is a North American future uh radar product and this is um getting into the afternoon.

[00:04:42]You see thunderstorms over at the BNO as Burns and there's Redmond and Ben. So you can see the action firing up and then look how this just explodes. This is 5:00 p.m. today. Now, fingers crossed the modeling is correct in that even if we have a ton of lightning, the lightning will be accompanied with torrential downpours which would kind of, you know, wet down wildfire chances if that makes sense. Okay, I'm sure crews will be watching this carefully, but there's some heavy rain pockets around Bend at 5:00 p.m. And then notice that the action bends up to the north.

[00:05:15]There's Pendleton. You get into the Hermiston area. This is early evening.

[00:05:19]And then this would be um late evening tonight showing some rain and maybe some thunder and lightning over the Dows. Now notice the line. So this particular model does not really pop these storms east of the Cascades. Again, I'm telling you it's a possibility.

[00:05:34]If the modeling is correct, it's not a likelihood, but it's a possibility. And then we go into tomorrow morning. See this band of light rain? This is the front that's coming in off the Pacific.

[00:05:46]And it's the reason that we see thickening low-level cloudiness and a touch of light rain coming into tomorrow morning. This is left over here. There's Bend. This is leftover from the thunderstorm activity. Rain, maybe still some lightning even early tomorrow morning over near and east of the Cascades. But here's the light rain hitting the coast at 5:00 a.m. And here's that light rain moving through the Portland area midm morning. And then the front continues to basically wedge out the instability. The rain chances for the valley end in the afternoon and we probably eventually get some clearing and then the storm threat ends for most of us going into Saturday morning and here's during the day on Saturday we're pretty quiet. All right.

[00:06:26]Uh how much rain are we talking about?

[00:06:29]Big- time downpours, right? There will be some people get Well, let me rephrase. A lot of these storms east of the Cascades I think will dump a quarter to a half of an inch of rain and then some of the bigger batter areas or maybe spots that get with multiple clusters of storms which could happen could pick up an inch of rain. So look at this rain bullseye uh over this is kind of in central south central Oregon. Look at this 1.96 inches of rain. Here's up in the Hood River area 53100s. There's the Dow's 4/10en of an inch of rain. There's heavy rain crawling up through Mount St. Helens in the Washington Cascade 67100s of an inch of rain. Again, the rain totals in Portland 04, Tilma 01. These are rain totals from that weak bit of light rain coming in with the front first thing Friday morning. Clearly the main convective heaviest action from thunderstorms this afternoon, this evening gathering in the central portion of our state and to a lesser degree along the Washington Cascades. Okay. Um, this is the overall flow pattern that we're looking at. Here's that upper level low right over California and Tahoe later today at uh 5:00 p.m. Here is the upper level low up in the Gulf of Alaska. It's going to bring that cold front in and the chance of some light rain moving in Friday morning. So, let me play this into Friday morning. Let me play it into Friday afternoon. This is getting into Friday evening. Notice the low that was over California and Tahoe is now weakened and it's all the way over Utah. Okay, so that's the storm chance ending and getting out of here.

[00:08:02]But here is um that cold trough still with us going into the day on Saturday.

[00:08:08]Now, it looks like we will be dry on Saturday, but we're still looking at a cool marine flow. So, could be some morning clouds on Saturday and then kind of partly cloudy. We think temperatures will hold in the 60s. And then as we go into Sunday, here we are Sunday afternoon. see the weak ridging developing, but that's a day that's going to bring sunshine after maybe some early clouds and warm us up to 70 degrees. And it doesn't look like much on paper, but the weather modeling, here's Monday afternoon. Really, see this ridge axis right here up along Vancouver, uh the coast of Canada rather, right up in here. The weather models bring in a bubble of really warm air with an east wind flow that will warm us well into the 80s on Monday here in the Lama Valley and especially Portland. And some of the modeling even pushes close to 90 degrees on Tuesday, which you're looking at right here. Now, out to sea is the next cold trough sitting in the Gulf of Alaska. Models were hinting, okay, this only goes until Tuesday evening. Models were hinting that there's a front right in here that comes in during the day on Wednesday and gives us a chance of showers. And some of those same models have now pushed that back to Thursday. So, that may or may not happen. And if it does, it probably doesn't end up being much. But if we're really warm on Monday and if we're downright getting hot on Tuesday, this will at least bring cooler weather in Wednesday, if not Thursday of next week. So that low run of of warm to hot weather wouldn't last uh terribly long.

[00:09:34]Okay, so that's kind of what we're looking at. Let's go around the horn.

[00:09:37]Let me make sure I've got the uh current temperatures at 10:30 this morning.

[00:09:41]Already 66 in Portland. Already 81 up at Yaka. Yeah, we're warming up. Here's Medford. Chance of showers later today and Friday and then all dry starting Saturday.

[00:09:53]There's that heat up on Monday, Tuesday.

[00:09:54]88 91 down in Memphis on Tuesday. Okay, let's go up into Bend today.

[00:09:59]Thunderstorms exploding later today.

[00:10:02]Showers likely on Friday and then all dry, a cooler weekend, 64 69 and then warming up into next week. Okay, up in Seattle, which is largely going to escape a lot of this action today.

[00:10:15]sunny, even 80 up to the north of us.

[00:10:18]And north of us being Portland. Some rain Friday with that weakening system coming in and then all dry. 63 Saturday, 67 on Sunday. And then there's a warm-up 82 on Tuesday of next week. Eugene, chance of thunderstorms this evening, bouncing off the Cascades. Rain showers mainly Friday morning, all dry weekend.

[00:10:39]70 on Sunday. A big warmup. 79 Monday, 85 Tuesday. Okay, Salem is is going to be similar. Let's see here. Chance of rain mainly Friday morning. Comfortable weekend, 72 Sunday. There's the warm-up 88 Tuesday. The cool down midweek that may or may not come with a touch of some rain. I want to click on the dowels. You folks looking for a thunderstorm cluster potentially this evening. Showers on Friday, a dry Saturday with breezy west winds is the cooler air masses in and then the warmup after that nearing 90° on Tuesday. Okay. Um Pendleton 75 degrees right now on the way to 86.

[00:11:21]Chance of thunderstorms later today into this evening. Mainly a dry Friday this shows with the temperature cooling down to 70 degrees. All right, up in Atoria, there'll be a touch of rain Friday morning and then decreasing clouds during the day and a somewhat cool weekend. 59 Saturday, 61 on Sunday.

[00:11:39]Sunday definitely a sunnier day than what we'll see on uh Saturday. And then one more as we go around the horn here, North Bin. Uh well, pretty comfortable weather. Chance of rain mainly going into Friday morning. All right, Portland 7-day forecast brought to you by Hazel Tire Pros up in Vancouver. I've got us 83 today. It was only 78 yesterday. I thought we'd be close to 80 yesterday.

[00:11:59]We were 78. 80 83 today. Chance of a storm this evening or overnight popping into the valley off the mountains. May or may not happen. Cloudy when you wake up in the morning. Some light rain around. The afternoon looks like it'll be dry. Only 66. Pretty good cool down.

[00:12:15]Saturday dry. 67 68 maybe 69. I just don't think Saturday hits 70. And then Sunday 72. And then there's the the warmup. 84 88. Then we either get into cooler weather on Wednesday or Thursday of next week that may or may not bring a shower threat with it. All right, that is your update. Don't forget if you're watching this from areas near the Cascades um and especially over in central Oregon, the Ben, Redmond, Madress area, some of the storms later today could bring strong to damaging winds and a ton of lightning. So, uh take shelter if those storms move into your area. I'm Rod Hill. Thanks for subscribing and I will talk to you soon.