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If you were girding for yet another natural disaster in 2020, you can exhale. The winter storm forecasted to bring floods and power outages this afternoon already passed through Portland.
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service warned that Friday afternoon could see high winds and pounding rain, potentially leading to downed power lines and high water.
Instead, the predicted weather system came early and was much less ferocious than expected. The system already passed through last night.
"Our forecast changed quite a bit," says David Elson, a meteorologist for the Portland office of NWS. "We thought there was a bigger storm than we wound up with. The system we were talking about, we've already seen it."
According to the NWS, Portland is in for a week of rainy, windy weather, and potential thunderstorms throughout today. But the worst is already over.
Still, Portland didn't totally make it through unscathed. According to Portland General Electric, hundreds of people are without power in Multnomah and Clackamas counties due to storm-related outages. Other areas of Oregon were hit harder, and thousands around the state are without power.