Good morning!
The sponsor of the report for the next few days is You can see his work in Doppio (an amazing world map), on 6th street in Hood River (an incredible tile mural), and all over town on people’s walls. This coming Saturday, you have a chance to meet Mark, wish him a happy birthday, and pick up an original Mark Nilsson painting. Your purchase of Mark’s beautiful artwork will help send him to Paris (assuming the French still aren’t on strike) to celebrate his (big) birthday. To see some of the paintings, visit Mark’s Facebook page. And, one lucky person on the email list will win a mini Mark Nilsson painting.
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Although clouds have moved into the Gorge this morning, it’s still going to be a pleasant day to play outside. We’ll see occasional light showers this morning in post-frontal flow, but not enough to ruin the mountain biking.
The 3-hour precip models says the strongest rain will be overnight tonight, with showers during the day tomorrow. The skies open up tomorrow night, releasing a tropically-sourced downpour over the entire Northwest. We’re looking at .2” tonight, 1” Saturday, and 2” Sunday at higher elevations. That’s going to do nice things to the river levels by Sunday or Monday.
If you’d like to go skiing, keep an eye on the webcams Sunday. Sometime during the day, snow levels will drop to the passes. At least a foot of snow will fall on the slopes at Timberline and also at the base of Meadows. Even Skibowl should see some snow out of this storm.
And if you’d like to go windsurfing or kiting, cross your fingers. At this point, it’s looking like the strongest weekend wind will happen Saturday night into Sunday morning, with a significant pressure gradient driving strong winds in the eastern Gorge. If you’re a speedsailer, you’re probably headed to the coast already for the gale and storm warnings and combined seas of 31 feet (W swell at 20ft) on Sunday. Maybe storm watching is a better idea than open-ocean sailing this weekend…
During the lovely fall weather this weekend, you’ll have the opportunity to run 26.2 miles in the rain at the Columbia Gorge Marathon. And of course, don’t forget to swing by Mark Nilsson’s studio at 7 Hazel street from 10-5 Saturday to drink his coffee and take a look at his fabulous art and wish him a happy birthday!
Have an awesome day today!
Temira
p.s. If you find this report useful, entertaining, or just want to recognize all the hard work that goes into it, please take the time to make a donation by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. For a suggested donation of $10, I’ll add you to the email version of this list ‘til May 2011, putting you in the running for cool prizes donated by the weekly sponsors.
