textproduct: Medford

AVIATION

24/18Z TAFS LIFR stratus will linger today from Cape Blanco southward. This evening, expect LIFR to continue to spread north along the coast, filling the coast by around 03Z. Coastal ceilings will lift to MVFR, southerly winds will increase, and rain will develop with a cold front on Monday morning. These conditions will then persist through Monday afternoon and night.

Elsewhere, expect continued VFR into Monday afternoon. Cumulus build ups and isolated showers and thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and evening in Siskiyou County, with a lesser extent of cumulus build ups also expected east-northeastward into far southern portions of Klamath and Lake counties.

MARINE...Updated 345 AM PDT Sunday, May 24, 2026

Gusty north winds will keep seas steep through Sunday morning. Wave heights will be relatively low around 6 to 8 feet at 7 seconds. A cold front will move through the waters on Memorial Day bringing rain and increasing seas. Seas are likely to become steep again on Monday afternoon, with the highest probability, strongest south winds expected to occur north of Cape Blanco. Swell dominated seas are expected to reach a peak on Tuesday at around 13 to 16 ft at 14 seconds.

High pressure offshore and lingering low pressure inland are likely to bring increasing north winds on Wednesday with gales possible south of Port Orford. Gusty north winds are likely to continue steep to very steep seas Wednesday night into Thursday while a long period west-northwest swell builds.

PREV DISCUSSION

/Issued 401 AM PDT Sun May 24 2026/

DISCUSSION...

Not much will change from Saturday as the upper air pattern remains zonal with some weak embedded short waves. Just like yesterday, we had to increase PoPs and the chance of thunder to get some mention of thunderstorms in the forecast around northern California. Any storms or showers that do from will be isolated and fairly weak with limited lightning activity. In any case, it will be another warm day as highs push into the 80's and perhaps 90 here in Medford. We've hit that 90 degree mark the last few days at the office.

The weather pattern really begins to change on Monday as a deeper trough in the Pacific approaches the coast on Monday morning. In addition, a well defined cold front should push onshore by the afternoon hours, which is a bit slower than what the models were showing the last few days. The latest set of guidance shows this front bringing wetting rain to the coast, although it will be notably drier farther inland, even for some locations west of the Cascades near the California border.

Winds remain the other topic of concern as this front moves into Oregon. Forecast soundings continue to show deep mixing during the afternoon hours with dry adiabatic lapse rates up to 600 mb east of the Cascades. It looks very likely we'll mix down wind gusts around 40 mph with some areas gusting to 45 mph. The extreme forecast index(EFI) also made a concerning tick upwards with the 0Z ensemble run Saturday evening. It's now highlighting EFI wind gust values of 0.99 to 0.90 across our forecast area. Values this high denotes the ensemble wind gust forecast exceeding model climatology for the time of year, which is unusual. Another concern is the shift of tails around 1-2, which suggests about 10% of the ensemble members are predicting wind gusts in the extreme of model climatology for late May.

So what does this all mean for impacts? Wind gusts this strong could produce isolated power outages. Also, any events outdoors should plan for some stronger wind gusts in the afternoon and evening. There are also some fire weather concerns as wind gusts mixed with low relative humidity farther to the east will increase the fire weather risk, especially in Lake County.

Eventually, this front and trough will push through Oregon Monday night into Tuesday and temperatures will trend significantly cooler with highs in the lower 60's in the Rogue Valley. Thats about a 30 degree trend lower compared to forecasted highs today.

This low will become cutoff and bring us a continued chance of showers and perhaps some embedded thunderstorms through most of next week. Given the cooler and wetter airmass, we're not concerned about major weather impacts from these showers or thunderstorms. If anything, the rain from these thunderstorms will be beneficial given how dry it has been this Spring and Winter.

MFR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

OR...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM to 11 PM PDT Monday for ORZ625.

CA...Red Flag Warning from 1 PM to 11 PM PDT Monday for CAZ285.

PACIFIC COASTAL WATERS...None.