While the mountains could see some more snow on Friday (and a rain shower in the valley in the afternoon isn’t out of the question), most of the wintry weather of late will ease as we head into the weekend. There is one more weak storm system moving in Friday afternoon, but the dynamics aren’t strong enough to have much left over for the valley to overcome the rain shadow effect. The mountains could potentially see a couple of additional inches. As we head into the weekend, conditions will stabilize and slowly warm up, from the low 50s on Saturday to near 60 degrees by Monday.

Yesterday, I mentioned that “The Blob” has apparently come to an end. The Blob is the descriptive if decidedly unscientific name given to a large persistent area of anomalously warm water off the coast of the Pacific Northwest which had been there for the last couple of years. Caused by the “RRR” (Ridiculously Resilient Ridge…and no, I’m not making up the names), the Blob was a reflection and possibly a reinforcer of the ridge of high pressure that was the main cause of at least the last two years of drought. Tomorrow, I’ll talk a bit about what this might mean in the future.