It felt like for a while earlier this month almost every single day was windy, but then it finally let up. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the wind is coming back! Of course, the wind isn’t all that bad – we need periodic weather systems to mix things up during the winter. Otherwise, we would be stuck in a months-long temperature inversion with almost no hope of relief from the cold fog and accompanying pollution.
The main story is an incoming weather system that will be the main driver for our pattern for the next couple days. This starts Thursday night with winds starting to flow from the south. If you’re already in fog or under low clouds, it’s not clear whether tonight’s action will be enough to give you a starry night. Otherwise, it looks like once the south flow starts we will see a slow increase in temperatures.
The HRRR is also indicating that we could see some light rain showers around midnight, though even if these do form I’m not sure how much of that water will make it to the ground. It seems to me that the most likely thing as far as precipitation goes is that the Tri-Cities and Hermiston could see some drizzle, with light rain showers possible in Walla Walla and Pendleton. Snow levels will be quite high, so I wouldn’t expect any significant travel impacts in the Blue or Cascade Mountains overnight. If you happen to be up overnight and are interested, you can look at our current doppler radar imagery over on my radar page!
The south flow will be relatively weak overnight Thursday, with strengthening expected Friday and gusts expected to reach around 30 mph in the afternoon. There is a chance that we will see stronger winds on Saturday, but the timing on this is a little up in the air. The GFS indicates that this will be a morning event with gusts to 40 mph. It then shows winds slowly calming down some later in the afternoon. On the other hand, the ECMWF displays this as a afternoon event with gusts to 45 mph (though it also has gusty conditions in the morning). Both numbers seem a little high to me for in-town conditions, but that range seems reasonable for areas outside of town. Expect higher gusts on hill tops and ridges.
Either way, make sure to secure your outdoor belongings so they don’t end up in your neighbor’s yard or flying down the road. If you are going to be traveling between cities on Saturday, be prepared for significant tumbleweed drifts that could leave you stranded. This is especially true in areas like the Hanford Site where farming doesn’t happen, as farms will often have much less tumbleweeds growing on them. I don’t know if there will be large tumbleweed drifts that impact travel, but ever since New Years Eve it comes to mind every time we have a wind event coming.
Enhanced wind speeds are possible in the Walla Walla and Pendleton areas on Saturday afternoon as there is a chance that a downsloping event will set up. This is when air descends rapidly off the Blue Mountains and into the Columbia Basin and can often have a warming effect.
High temperatures Friday are expected to reach above 60° in the Tri-Cities, with them getting close to that mark on Saturday. Things should be a bit calmer on Sunday, but they will also be cooler. After this system moves through, we’re looking at highs in the mid-40s through mid-week.
The featured image for this post is GFS modeled wind speeds as displayed by Tropical Tidbits.
