{"id":387008,"date":"2026-01-04T08:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T08:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387008\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T08:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T08:32:11","slug":"hurricane-hunters-fly-west-to-study-atmospheric-rivers-snow-returns-to-the-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387008\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Hunters fly west to study atmospheric rivers &#038; snow returns to the mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) \u2014 When atmospheric rivers threaten the Pacific Northwest and west coast, a group of scientists and meteorologists take to the sky. <\/p>\n<p>WEATHER | <a href=\"https:\/\/katu.com\/weather\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Latest Storm Tracker 2 Forecast<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hurricane Hunters, the ones who fly into the most powerful storms in earth, trade Category 5 winds for streams of water vapor moving quickly across the ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricane Hunters are assisting the <a href=\"https:\/\/cw3e.ucsd.edu\/arscale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Scripps Institution of Oceanography<\/a> at the University of California, San Diego, by flying into the storms to gather data.<\/p>\n<p>Two C-130s flew into the atmospheric river that impacted Oregon and Washington in early December.<\/p>\n<p>The team drops instrument packs called radiosondes into the stream of moisture. They measure temperature, pressure, water content, and winds. <\/p>\n<p>In the past, the team of researchers have used Portland International Airport as a base and fly hours-long missions gathering vital information.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, there are no atmospheric rivers in the forecast at the moment, just run of the mill winter time cold fronts.<\/p>\n<p>The rain returned overnight and showers and sun breaks will be the call for your Saturday. The highs today around the region will be about 10 degrees above average.<\/p>\n<p>Showers remain for Sunday and on Monday, we get a one day break from the rain. By Sunday morning, most of the western side of Oregon will have received about three-quarters of an inch of rain.<\/p>\n<p>We are still watching and waiting for seasonal cold air to move into the region. Ski resorts have been begging for more snow after limited openings over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Snow is back in the forecast for the Cascades starting mid-week - Storm Tracker 2 Weather graphic\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/bbf3d9f6-1533-48b2-8574-d844602f2a24-mountainsnow.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Snow is back in the forecast for the Cascades starting mid-week &#8211; Storm Tracker 2 Weather graphic<\/p>\n<p>Snow will fall in the Cascades starting Tuesday as we move back toward more average temperatures.Government Camp could see just under a foot of new snow by Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katu.com\/weather\/weather-app\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Storm Tracker 2 Weather App<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) \u2014 When atmospheric rivers threaten the Pacific Northwest and west coast, a group of scientists&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-387008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}