Karl Bonner

My favorite female weather anchor would be one who can out-geek Mark.

This is gonna be a fun year to track the shift out of our cold late winter pattern, and into early spring. Wouldn't it be wild if we got a warm ridge in early March, basically on top of lingering snow cover in the Columbia Basin? Maybe we could have mild spring sunshine on one side of the mountains, while the other side is still cold.

A nice abrupt change of season possible this year. Cold weather we've had will make the first 60 degree day feel that much more enchanting.

What about all that snow cover east side? Nearly 2 feet in the gorge and over a foot points east. This gave forecasters and models a real headache back in Jan-Feb 2017. Seems to me that a cold east wind could easily redevelop at some point in the next 7-10 days.

So...a pool of cold air (Fake Cold) kept The Dalles below 40 degrees for 2 days in a row, in the 2nd week of November. Pretty dang early in the season. But that raises the inevitable question: What's the latest in the season we've pulled off the same feat? I don't think I ever remember anything similar to this in the 2nd half of February, at least not without REAL cold air in the upper pattern. About the closest thing I could find in the records was a dry day with a low of 36 and high of 39, on 02/21/2009. I was living in Eugene at the time. That may well be one of the latest Fake Cold days ever to hit the Gorge and Columbia Basin.

A second pulse of modified arctic air Thursday for the Columbia Basin?

Don't tell me it's goin' east on us again!!!

It's a little easier to get inversion 1 1/2 months after the solstice (February 3-4) than 1 1/2 months before (November 6-7). In the first week of November it's still not too tough to get into the 60s with sunshine and a mild airmass. But in most years, not until the latter half of February that widespread 60s start to become readily attainable.

This is waaay too early to speculate...but wouldn't it be wild if for once, the coldest airmass of the season came after March 1?

Only a little over 2 hours until the Stoner Cuz (06z) maybe-possibly-just-hopefully gives us a taste of an arctic blast, or at least wet snow in the hills?

Scariest experience I had with trees in a windstorm? When I lived in Eugene, one time the power went out with a loud bang and when I walked down the street, some trees had been uprooted and were leaning heavily on a power line directly above the sidewalk. Definitely had to detour myself around that one...

If that's the case we better hit 70 degrees in late February

Do you think "Stoner Cuz" is a good nickname for the 06z, in a mirror analogy to the 18z Drunk Uncle?

This round of cold snap model riding has dumbfounded and flustered me like no other. The whole upper-level pattern forecast has been teetering "on the edge" for more than a week now and it STILL can't decide how much arctic air comes west of the Rockies. To sprinkle a bit of comic relief, all this wild flip-flopping seems to have broken the GEFS weather ensemble charts at the site I use. Haven't been able to get any new ones since 18z Sunday. About all we can say for sure is that the Basin at least gets a shot of medium-cold air at the end of the week. Some of that will come through the Columbia River Gorge to chill the Portland area a bit. Everything else is still a total crapshoot.

Days 9 & 10 on the Euro weren't terribly cold, though there is a cool-ish airmass over the Columbia Basin. Which might support my "Colder Fake Cold" theory if it verifies and high pressure returns...