I hope ALL of you are keeping safe and keeping apart from other human beings, this week.  Wow….it’s incredible how this COVID-19 virus has upended our entire social order in a matter of two weeks.  Exactly two Saturdays ago I was at a basketball game between the Blazers and the Kings.  But I seriously doubt we’ll be able to do that again, for the next several months at least!

This pandemic is horrifically serious business.  At this point it’s pretty much impossible to keep the U.S. death toll below 10,000 , even if literally everything shuts down beginning tomorrow.  And if we don’t act in the next couple days, it will be too late to stop a nationwide emergency room carnage, with ICUs overflowing, not enough medical personnel on hand and fatalities in the hundreds of thousands.

Fortunately for Northwesterners, the weather beginning Monday will be just what we need to get people to stay home.

As you are probably aware, we’ve had beautiful March weather for the past 6 days.  This came immediately on the heels of a late-season cold snap last weekend.  The problem is that too many people aren’t getting the social-distancing memo, and are crowding onto waterfronts and Oregon beaches.  Yes you can go for a hike – but only if the trail isn’t crowded with other people.  I’m going to attempt to find a safe place for a social distance hike tomorrow morning, but will not be too devastated if I can’t find one and have to cancel accordingly.

Tomorrow is the last mild and dry day for a while.  Late evening showers will usher in the return of a chilly, damp pattern.  The sun is going to quarantine itself behind a thick layer of clouds.  We’re going back to 850mb temps near -5, as opposed to the +2 or +4 we’ve been enjoying.  And this pattern is expected to last through the entire upcoming “work” week:

Ignore that stupid black “control curve,” and focus on the solid red and blue.  Blue below red means a cooler-than-normal airmass overhead.  (Like my rhyme?)  And all that green activity indicates that shower activity will be a regular part of our daily lives for quite a while.

The WRF-GFS precip maps through next Saturday morning don’t look all that soggy; maybe an inch total in Portland by then.  Chilly spring storms from the North Pacific are rarely as wet as their Central Pacific counterparts, due to their ‘semi-arctic’ origin.

Again, this is NOT a super-soaker kind of pattern, even by March standards.  But it will replenish the mountain snowpack and keep things mostly cloudy and damp in the lowlands.

Given that we can’t go jogging in Waterfront Park or play basketball with friends, or go to live music shows at night…this is great weather to keep us in an indoor mood.   I don’t think I’ve ever welcomed cold/wet spring weather, the way I am now.  In fact, I’d be perfectly fine if we had a 2011 repeat this year: cold spring, mild summer, and warm in early fall.

As far as I care, the progress of the seasons can be put on hold along with the rest of our lives.  If we’re lucky enough to be over lockdown by early June, for example…I’d prefer 70-degree temps and late spring lushness to 90 degrees and summer dryness.

Obviously we can’t make the weather gods wait out COVID-19 along with the rest of us.  But we can always wish…and under the circumstances, the prevailing rules of seasonal wishcasting need not apply.

In any case, stay safe everyone and see you on the other side of this outbreak! -Karl