Autumn rain may turn white.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

The odds are against it.

Snow days are rare enough in the Willamette Valley in the middle of winter, but getting one in November? Let's put it this way: It's a lot more common to have a 70-degree day in November than it is to have an inch or more of snow.

Nevertheless, by now it should be pretty apparent whether valley bottoms around Eugene and Springfield scored a rare jackpot in the November snow sweepstakes. If that's white you see on the ground, maybe this is a good day to buy a lottery ticket.

For the record, the National Weather Service called for up to an inch of snow collecting on valley floors and up to 3 inches in the surrounding hills. The snow advisory was to run through 6 a.m., followed by a chilly day with temperatures rising just enough to turn the snowflakes back to our more familiar rain.

The region just missed a snow day on Monday, with a whitewash that painted the Coburg Hills and Mount Pisgah almost, but not quite, to the valley floor. The Blachly School District, in the Coast Range hills west of Cheshire, was the only one in the region to cancel school.

Superintendent Bob De La Vergne said that with almost 2 inches in the parking lot at 6 a.m. Monday and the threat of more to come, he and fellow administrators decided not to risk the bus rides on the area's winding roads.

He was out again this morning to make the same call, as were any other district administrators in places where enough snow fell to turn school bus routes too slippery.

As usual, any closures will be broadcast on local radio stations and posted on the Internet at www.valleyinfo.net and on some school district Web sites.

Dave Willson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Portland, said the rare winterlike weather comes - can you believe

it? - from Canada, courtesy of a not-quite arctic air mass that blew in from British Columbia and is now spinning south and east. As it spins, it draws in moisture from around it and spits it out as snow wherever the temperatures stay cold enough.

Which they might do right here in River City. Maybe.

Keep in mind that the last time this part of the valley had an inch of snow in November was in the late 1970s, according a quick scan of the weather books by Willson. We haven't seen more than 2 inches since the early 1960s, and it's been more than 50 years since the record was set with the imagination-defying 6-inch snowfall of November 1955.

And it's unlikely that any of those measures will be beaten before November peters out on Thursday. But we could get some of snow's unpopular second cousin, freezing rain, before December arrives.

Warmer air will override the cold air mass on Thursday, Willson said, and when that happens precipitation that starts out as rain freezes as it falls and coats roads, trees and most everything else with ice.

If that happens, odds are you'll need your ice scrapers.