Tuesday started with light showers near the coast, around southern Washington near Chehalis, and over the South Cascades. By mid-morning, a few of these light showers may be tracking around the Canadian border. In the late morning, the showers wrap up, leaving an afternoon that clears to partly sunny for all of us. The high temperatures will be in the mid to upper 50s; that’s a little warmer than our Monday!
Today’s weather is brought to you by a weak trough of low pressure. The Low is located much further south, and it’s tracking into central California. The trough will exit quickly, near noon, which removes the chance of a shower from western Washington today.
This evening, with the temporary return of high pressure, mostly clear skies and light wind will allow fog and low clouds to develop for Wednesday morning. During the day Wednesday, high clouds will increase with a fast-moving frontal system. The fronts will bring rain to the coast close to 4 p.m., and inland rain will arrive Wednesday evening closer to 7 p.m. The rain from this front should end very early Thursday morning, leaving rain showers mainly in the Cascades.
With briefly higher pressure, the rest of the day Thursday will be mostly dry and even become partly sunny in the afternoon as high temperatures warm into the mid-50s. Overnight lows will be in the mid-to-upper 40s Friday morning, accompanied by rain.
The front coming in for Friday will be the strongest this week. Rain in the morning will also come with breezy conditions for the coast and our northern waterways. The risk of high surf at the coast is in this forecast too. Rainfall on Friday will accumulate in a range of 1 to 2 inches over the mountains (snow above 5,500 feet) and from 0.50” to 1” over the lowlands. Across the Olympic Peninsula, at the Pacific Coast and southwest Washington, the rain amounts will be highest.
The jet stream, steering our weather systems, will move north of Washington into Canada for Friday, and that will take some of Friday’s frontal energy with it. The jet stream will carve high pressure for Saturday to make it a dry day. A warm front, spreading clouds across the sky, will not stop temperatures from warming into the upper 50s to low 60s.
We should be in the sunshine occasionally on Saturday; it’s the evening hours that bring back another weather system. Saturday evening will become windy for the coast and north interior of western Washington. Rain will increase after 11 p.m. As fast as the rain arrives Saturday night, it also tracks out Sunday morning, leaving us with a drier day on Sunday, with partly to mostly cloudy skies, with more sunshine late in the day before the sun sets. High temperatures will be cooler, in the mid-50s.