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Showers, yes, but valley will have it easy Warnings of floods, slides hit northwest Oregon Staff and wire reports Mother Nature won't be a turkey to Rogue Valley-area residents during the long Thanksgiving weekend. Although showers are expected through Sunday, there won't be a repeat of the heavy deluge that swamped the valley last weekend, predicted Rick Holtz, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office at the Medford airport. "The best chance for rain is this system still hanging off the coast when it flies on through," he said late Wednesday afternoon. "But the potential has really lessened. We'll get some rain, but not a lot." However, the snow level was expected to drop to about 3,000 feet above sea level today, he said. "It'll be dropping to the pass levels," he said. "But by the time that happens there won't be a tremendous amount of precipitation left. We're not looking for a lot of snow." The snow level is expected to remain around 3,000 feet through Monday while rain showers are predicted on the valley floor through the same period. The mercury rose to a balmy 62 in Medford on Wednesday, but it was well below the 69-degree record established on Nov. 25, 1960. But the warm weather didn't delay the opening day at Ski Ashland, where a 58-inch base was reported at the lodge. Other parts of the state haven't escaped from a recent storm system that battered the coastline. Flood warnings were issued Wednesday for rivers in Tillamook, Lincoln, Clastsop and Columbia counties, as several inches of rain were expected to fall by evening. In Portland, landslide danger was high on ground drenched by 3.5 inches of rain since Thursday. Hillsides are more prone to slide after rain loosens and separates soil particles. Foresters also predicted slide danger for most of the Coast Range. Forecasters think the Northwest probably will be hit by an unusually high number of storms this winter, many coming in quick succession. The reason is that the global weather pattern known as El Nino -- characterized by warm Pacific Ocean waters off South America -- appears to be giving way to a pattern known as La Nina. During La Nina periods, the ocean off South America is cooler than normal, and the jet stream, a band of fast-moving air 30,000 feet above the Earth, moves from Alaska to the Northwest. George Taylor, Oregon's state climatolgist, thinks the shift in weather cycles could bring decades of wet weather to the region. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA