Oregon Public Broadcasting

According to the calendar, the official start of winter is still more than a week away.  But it’s going to feel a whole lot like winter in the Willamette Valley over the next few days.  Pete Springer reports.

Depending on whom you ask or what forecast you look at, it may, or may not snow in the Willamette Valley this weekend. 

Dan Keirns is with the National Weather Service in Portland.  He’s predicting snow.

Dan Keirns: “It does look like there’s a reasonably decent almost distinct chance that when people go out on Sunday morning, they’ll see some white stuff on the ground.  An inch or two.  And that’s what we’d like to make come true for the people that want it, the people who don’t want the snow, well, the weather does what it wants to, not what we want it to.”

Like all weather forecasters, Keirns admits he sometimes gets it wrong. 

He says his forecasts are “pretty good” for the next two to three days, but beyond that, the weather can take turns that forecasters can’t always predict.

Keirns says even if the valley floor doesn’t get snow, the weekend storm will likely dump enough snow in the Cascades for ski areas to open up for the season.