Good evening everybody! I’m sure this isn’t the title you were hoping for, so let’s start off with the fun stuff.
We saw some light snow across some of Western Washington this morning! Most places saw an inch or less, but some places got more. Carlson in the foothills of the South Washington Cascades picked up 4 inches, while Chehalis picked up 2. Take a look at this WSDOT webcam just to the south of Chehalis this morning!
I was riding the bus up from Portland and traffic was stopped for a while due to spinouts on the road. Please remember to always use extra caution when driving in the snow, as roads can be very slick.
We have another very slight chance for snow tonight. Let’s take a quick look at some of our current conditions around the region.
As you can see, winds are pretty light… less than 5 knots for most folks. There are also winds coming from different directions; generally speaking, we have southerly winds through the lowlands south of Everett and northeasterly winds north of Everett. You can see the Fraser River outflow near Bellingham. More on that later.
When winds meet, we have convergence. And with an unstable atmosphere, a few showers are currently popping up across the region.
These showers are extremely light and are moving very slowly counterclockwise around a very weak low off our coast.
Some of these showers are bringing light snow to some locations. I got a report from Travis Parker up in Anacortes of light snow falling associated with a nearly stationary shower there. There have been some light showers roaming around the Seattle area, but precipitation has been either a rain/snow mix or simply rain for us so far.
I’m forecasting little/no snow for the Seattle Metro area tonight, as I do not believe the strong convergence zone shown last/this morning in the models will form. This is because the Fraser River outflow appears to be weaker than modeled, and weaker outflow = less convergence, which lowers our chance of snow. There could still be a few snow showers popping up here and there with spotty accumulations up to 2-3 inches, but most people will see no/very little accumulation. Heavier snow is still expected for the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula where a winter storm warning is in effect for 1-3 inches of snow.
Tuesday and Wednesday will be cold and dry with highs in the mid to upper 30s. Thursday’s forecast is interesting… one model gives us a windstorm while another gives us several inches of snow before switching to rain. I’ll save that for another blog.
Have a nice night, and I hope you all got to see some flakes today!
Charlie
