Just a Week to Go, Kids

Pretty nice in Stumptown today, as filtered sunshine warms things up. Not as nice as they had been forecasting, mind you. Forgotten are the hosanna-eliciting predictions of mid-70s; maybe 68? We'll take it. I imagine it's not very different at the other end of the Willamette Valley—110 miles down the road—in Eugene.

I'm feeling good that my last pre-Eugene run of any length, an easy 10-miler, is scheduled for this afternoon. That's because tomorrow things go to hell for a while, with the forecast calling for showers and 50s for much of the week. When exactly this "troughiness," as the weather geeks call it, will end—and what it will leave in its wake—appears to be the developing theme for the 2010 Eugene Marathon weather watch. And the news continues to look pretty good on that front ("front" ... hee-hee). The fellas in the National Weather Service office here, whose forecast area includes Eugene, say in their discussion this morning:

POST FRONTAL AIR MASS AND SWIFT MOVING SHORTWAVES WILL KEEP AN ACTIVE THREAT OF SHOWERS THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY...ESPECIALLY OVER OROGRAPHICALLY ENHANCED AREAS. BEGINNING FRIDAY NIGHT A RIDGE IS SHOWN TO BEGIN INFLUENCING THE FORECAST AREA THROUGH THE WEEKEND...THOUGH DETAILS VARY. HAVE KEPT A DRYING TREND TOWARD THE END OF THE WEEK.

A ridge is what we want. We spell ridge "D-R-Y."

As for Accuweather, their "sunshine with patchy clouds" for Eugene on Sunday, May 2, has morphed into "considerable cloudiness." Forecast high and low are unchanged, at 66 and 37, respectively. No rain is expected, but north winds of 8 mph gusting to 23 mph are noted. (Don't worry too much about that yet; because winds vary so greatly from hour to hour, a useful forecast for marathon morning won't be had until we're within 48 hours of the race—perhaps not even until the night before.)

Finally, over at Weather.com, the 10-day—which toward the outer end seems to be based largely on climatology—envisions "partly cloudy" conditions with a high of 65 and a low of 45. Chance of rain is 20 percent, but this time of year they almost never take some small chance of rain out of the extended forecast.