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(National Weather Service)

Winter begins Saturday with the solstice, but as we’ve said innumerable times on these pages, the meteorological winter began on Dec. 1.

Our frigid, record-breaking cold temperatures during the first two weeks of the month followed this script, as did the wintry mixes of snow and freezing fog that followed.

The temperatures dropped once again below freezing Thursday morning, setting the region up for yet another transition from cold to warmer and wetter.

, said Paul Tolleson, a forecaster for the

.

Temperatures will again drop below freezing overnight into Friday, he said. Look for snow flurries to start somewhere between 3 and 5 a.m., and then transition to freezing rain and/or sleet. Drivers beware.

“The forecast is not a slam dunk, but this is what we think will happen,’’ Tolleson said. “The freezing rain should turn to rain by late morning as southerly winds come in.”

By Friday afternoon, the rain is expected to increase, he said, and could get heavy before turning intermittent and light into the weekend and early next week.

“The Cascades should get a decent shot of snow,” Tolleson said, “but the passes will see rain. The ski areas at higher elevations will get snow.”

Portland could use the rain: Through 10 a.m. Thursday,

in December, which average precipitation of 5.49 inches.

That puts Portland’s rainfall since Jan. 1 at 26.25 inches, 7.61 inches below average.

Last year at this time -- thanks to above-average rainfall in October, November and December -- Portland had received 47.36 inches of precipitation.

, rainfall added up to a whopping 50.44 inches, or 14.41 inches above average.

--Stuart Tomlinson