January 03, 2016

Yes, It's Snowing in the Lowlands!

Well....there are flakes outside my window now and many stations in western WA are reporting light snow.

Quite honestly, our forecasting models had the timing of this band off by at least 6 hours....it came much earlier than expected.   With cool, dry air in place, the precipitation either started as snow or rain turning into snow.   Here is the latest radar (1:18 PM)....generally light.

And the latest visible satellite image shows the cloud band.  Still clear on the coast.


I really don't expect more than a dusting in most Puget Sound locations.  There was considerable more around Portland (1-2 inches), as suggested by this cam image from Portland:


Here is the National Weather Service "weather story" on the snow.  There was much more south and east of Tacoma (as much as 1-1.5 inches) than over Seattle.


7 comments:

  1. To the blog writer. Is it ever going to calm down out here in Washington? So far NOAA has been basically 100% wrong, three months in a row. Calling for above normal temps and below normal precip. But it has been the opposite. Just wondering if we are going to regulate to normal El Nino conditions or is this going to be a long lived winter with a lot of precipitation?

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  2. Isn't that webcam from Vancouver, WA looking at the Interstate Bridge?
    This blog is great! Thanks for your posts.

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  3. It was snowing hard enough in South King County uplands between Auburn and Black Diamond to force an early shutdown to the Rainier Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Lakes Holm and Moneysmith are almost completely frozen over.

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  4. Forget the snow, the story in Portland right now is the ice. Seems every street is under 2" of the stuff. People in this town are wheel-skating, not driving.

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  5. Nothing noteworthy in north Whatcom County. Unremarkable weather for a long while now.

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  6. As usual, disappointing. A half inch at most at my place at 400 feet. I want to see Snowmageddon.

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