Unsettled week ahead

From Oregon.com, heavy snow fell yesterday across the Cascades of the Pacific northwest.

A stubborn warm front remains to our south this morning, with light drizzle, fog and cool temperatures across the St. Lawrence Valley. The warm front and associated low pressure area should lift north of the region by later tonight with temperatures slowly on the rise. We are around 4C this morning but look for temperatures to warm to 11C by late in the day and stay there overnight. It will be very mild on Tuesday and Wednesday close to 18C with some regions especially upstate New York and the Champlain Valley hitting the 21C (70F) mark. A cold front will sweep the region by late Thursday with dropping temperatures and cloudy skies. It is early yet in the week but Halloween looks cloudy with showers. I expect that may change. With the warmer air moving in from the south there may even be a thunderstorm anytime this week. The best chance will be today and again late Wednesday and Thursday. Some sunshine may also peak in Tuesday but there will not be much blue sky this week.

A big Pacific storm was responsible for heavy rain and strong winds along the BC coast this weekend. It also brought the first big snowfall to portions of the upper elevations of the Pacific Northwest. Snow is even falling this morning at the lower elevations of BC and Alberta. Light snow is observed at Edmonton with -1C. The heavy snow closed some roads and caused travel delays across the Cascades of Oregon and Washington.

Hurricane Richard moved into Belize overnight with heavy rain and 90mph winds. The storm, now downgraded to tropical storm status, has taken a more western path into Central America. The system will weaken today and move across Honduras and into southern Mexico before dissipating over the Bay of Campeche this week. It does not look like Richard will affect the US as strong wind shear should prevent regeneration once back over the Gulf of Mexico.