Snowpocalypse 2019 has been called off, with much of Portland spared over the weekend and rain expected to return Monday morning, the National Weather Service said.

Predictions for the weekend and Monday night had prompted panicked Portlanders to get ready for the worst.

But the weekend storm spared much of the low-lying metro area, particularly west of Interstate 205. And the one predicted for Monday night simply will not happen.

What happened?

Cold winds from the east were weaker than expected, allowing warm winds from the south to raise temperatures in parts of the city, National Weather Service meteorologist Jeremiah Pyle said.

It’s particularly hard to predict the strength of east winds coming from the Columbia Gorge, Pyle said.

“We don’t have enough resolution in the models to deal with the complex terrain around here,” Pyle said.

The weekend forecast wasn’t entirely wrong, however. The service predicted one to four inches of snow, and parts of east Portland got that much or more, Pyle said.

As for Sunday night and Monday, temperatures will be too high for snow, Pyle said, because the eastern winds are now gone entirely, and because the low pressure system has moved farther north.

“Anyone who does see snow, it’ll quickly turn into rain,” Pyle said.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

fzarkhin@oregonian.com

desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin

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