It’s a calm morning region-wide out there, with no radar returns – indicating no precipitation in the area. There is fog in many of our valleys east of the Cascades this morning (including the Christmas Lake/Fort Rock and Warner Valleys in Lake County, and parts of the Sprague River Valley in Klamath, among other areas). This is uncommon for this time of year and indicative of how much moisture that part of the region has received over the last week or so. In addition to the inland fog, the persistent marine stratus layer has once again found its way inland into Coos and Douglas County, including the Umpqua Basin and into the Willamette Valley, as well as hugging the coast north of Cape Blanco and south of Pistol River.
Other than fog/stratus layers, many of which are beginning to erode as the sun gets higher, the rest of the region is mostly clear, with less of the cloud cover from the previous days convective activity than we’ve had as of late. In terms of today’s convective activity, we’ll have another day of isolated thunderstorms and showers south and east of the Cascade and Siskiyou Ranges, with chances for any thunder increasing as you head towards southeast Modoc and Lake Counties. It’ll be a warmer day today than yesterday (up to 4-7 degrees warmer in some areas, though the Rogue Valley should be about the same temperature as yesterday plus a degree or so) as another large closed low continues down the California coast, sending warm air into our region.
The upper low in east Oregon that provided the trigger and influx of moisture necessary for our recent stormy weather is being reabsorbed into the upper level flow and moving off to the north this morning. Meanwhile, a large closed low is sliding down the California coast, and will move inland into southern California through Sunday. This will lead to a continued chance for thunderstorms in the region as it pulls moist, warm air into the area from the south, with precipitable water (PW) in the 0.50″ to 1″ range through the weekend into early next week.
The area storms will be most likely to occur will be similar through the weekend with slight variations: generally east of the Cascades, as well as in Modoc and southeast Siskiyou counties. Sunday has the best chances for storms to make it west of the Cascades into the Rogue Valley and E. Douglas foothills, as the low swings inland and the axis of it tilts westwards, resulting in a southeast upper flow direction that could push some storms westwards. PW and CAPE values also look to be the best for supporting thunderstorms on Sunday, especially in northern California, where PW values of 1″ to 1.25″ are fairly anomalous for this time of year.
The upper level low makes its way east into the Great Basin Monday into Tuesday, with ridging nudging in to our northwest, turning the prevailing flow to the north then northeast aloft. This will begin to shut off the moisture source for the region, diminishing shower and thunderstorms chances through the first half of the week.
Monday will see chances for showers and thunderstorms shifting east and south from lingering moisture in the area, concentrated in northern California southeastern Lake County, with a lingering slight chance along the Cascades where upslope winds may touch off a shower or two. By Tuesday afternoon, convection chances will be contained to far eastern Lake and Modoc Counties, if any occurs at all. A dry cold front moves through the region Wednesday, resulting in a slight reduction in temperatures from the early week, but with no precipitation expected. Broad ridging then arrives, with dry conditions and slightly warmer than normal temperatures expected through the rest of the week.
Source: NWS Medford
Discover more from Medford Alert News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
