Hard to believe that just two weeks ago, we were talking about 99-degree heat over Memorial Day Weekend. A deep marine layer and “June Gloom” has settled in over the Pacific Northwest. Two days ago there was snow at Crater Lake as a chilly low-pressure moved through southern Oregon. That opened the door to a heavy surge of west wind yesterday, as the low exited to the east.

The peak gust was 47 mph at the airport in Dallesport – but I’m sure somebody in the local area felt a 50-mph gust at one point or another. The weather station at Maryhill DID report a 52 mph gust yesterday, but they’re usually slightly windier than DLS during these minor ‘storms’. All in all, yesterday was pretty similar to July 12, 2010 and July 7, 2011. Lots of twigs and a few medium-sized branches down – but just a few knots short of causing real widespread damage.

Today Tuesday, the wind was still pretty strong with gusts 35-40 mph…but that’s more of a “normal” windy day in The Dalles. What was most interesting, IMO, were all the low stratus clouds that drifted in from the west. Normally you have to go at least to Hood River, if not slightly west of that, before encountering the marine cloud deck. Either that, or have a weak low pressure somewhere along the WA or southern BC coastline – which we did NOT have today. The main feature was maritime high pressure nosing its way inland from western Oregon.

But on occasion (and today was one of those occasions), a strong enough marine layer can slop over into the eastern Gorge. It can even produce light sprinkles west of the Cascades, as happened in Portland today.

We have three more relatively cool/unsettled days ahead, then a warmup. More on that later.