spring takes an ugly turn

Days like Monday call to mind those 1970s postcards that said: “Oregonians don’t tan, they rust.”

After one of the driest winters in recent memory, it seems Old Man Winter has come out of his slumber just in time for spring. To think it was 69 degrees just six days ago.

Today’s forecast in the Eugene-Springfield area calls for wind, rain and thunderstorms, a balmy high of 49 in the city, with gusting winds and high swells at the coast and snow in the Cascades.

A foot of snow was expected to fall in the mountains by this morning, according to the National Weather Service in Portland.

“We’ve got a really big cold, low-pressure system moving in,” Weather Service meteorologist Chris Collins said.

Cold air moving inland from the Pacific Ocean is producing the instability, he said.

The Weather Service issued a high-surf advisory Monday for much of the Oregon Coast until 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Swells as high as 25 feet and generated by a series of strong storms in the gulf of Alaska were expected to pound the coastline with “unpredictable and destructive waves” through tonight.

“We had some wild wind last night,” Judith McDonald, who runs Judith’s Kitchen Tools in Yachats, said Monday. “Oh, boy, it really blew. We had all of that wonderful weather, and people forget, it’s not over yet,” she said of the winterlike conditions.

Around the Eugene-Springfield area Monday, umbrellas were the fashion accessory of the day; a lone golfer hit balls on the driving range at the Eugene Country Club in the early afternoon; a man with one of those hats with the ear flaps could be seen walking along Olive Street downtown; and two young men were wearing … shorts? … as they walked along East 13th Avenue on the University of Oregon campus.

Not everyone minds heavy rains.

Yet umbrella sales at the UO Bookstore were going just fine Monday, general manager Jim Williams said.

“When it’s really hot out, people buy ice,” he said. “When it rains, they buy umbrellas.”

When the wind is gusting, often those umbrellas that cost under $10 don’t last too long, Williams said. You get that whole why-is-my-umbrella-blowing-inside-out? effect.

“You want to walk into the wind, not away from it,” he advised.

Collins said the rain isn’t going away any time soon.

We might escape rain on Thursday, and maybe Saturday, he said. The overnight low could get down to 32 degrees by early Thursday morning.

The snow in the Cascades was expected to be “one of the best snow events of the year,” Collins said. “Any snow we can put up there is good.”

The warm, drier-than-normal winter was caused by El Niño, the weather phenomenon spawned by unusually warm water in the central Pacific Ocean, meteorologists say.

The snowpack in the Cascades was about 50 percent of normal this year. In fact, until last night, the snowpack in the 3,000- to 4,000-foot range had not changed since December, Collins said.

All of this new snow is coinciding with the end of Oregon’s studded-tire season Thursday.

After 12:01 a.m. Thursday, anyone in Oregon caught driving with studs faces a minimum $190 fine.

Although there was some consideration by the state Department of Transportation on Monday of extending the studded-tire deadline, the deadline remains in effect, ODOT spokesman Rick Little said.

Motorists planning to travel over the Cascades this week should be well prepared for snow and ice, he said.