February 26, 2017

Too Warm

While the passes are getting hammered with snow right now (chains required at Snoqualmie), the lower atmosphere is too warm to get snow down to near sea level.  Snow is being reported at higher stations (e.g., Paine Field in Everett) and over NW Washington, but around Seattle it is nearly all rain.
Peter Benda sent a picture at his house at 1170 feet near Bellevue...about 1.5 inches there.


And you pick up snow on I 90 east of Issaquah.


Light snow around Bellinghan


The snow level is around 400-500 feet now around Puget Sound.

We knew the temperatures were marginal, with the predicted precipitation intensities sufficient to bring the freezing and snow levels down to  a few hundred feet..   However, the precipitation has been lighter and thus the atmosphere stayed warmer near the surface.

The latest radar (7AM) show only light precipitation and the back edge of the front is already crossing the coast.  Just a few light showers offshore and most of those are going to the southeast.


Well,  at least everyone was warned about this possibility.

12 comments:

  1. Weather Underground is again predicting snow on March 3. In more than 30 years living near sea level in Edmonds and now Whidbey I can remember only a single snowfall that stuck on the ground beyond March 1. And I believe that was April 1 about 10 years ago in Edmonds and was just a dusting. A convergence zone event left at least 5 inches on the ground in Edmonds on March 1 in the early 90's.

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  2. If you look at Seattle weather data back to 1894, it shows incidents of snow (with at least a trace sticking to the ground) for every day starting March 1st until April 9. There are recorded snow days after April 9 as well. KOMO published this awhile back.

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  3. There can be snow into April, but the likelihood of a major (multi-inch) event goes to essentially zero after mid March...cliff

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  4. ^This. Very unlikely. Does happen, but kinda rare.

    In 2008, there was a snow event in May, here in Duvall (about an inch or two on the ground). Three weeks later, however, full-on summer weather with temps in the 90s.

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  5. Spokane's record is June 10th. Happend back in 2008 if I'm not mistaken.

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  6. Cliff, why is it dumping in Seattle right now?

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  7. I had a snow covered driveway on Whidbey (near lone lake) on 3/22/2013. It was quite a surprise! There was snow elsewhere, but i remember home bring the snowiest.

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  8. Wish I could post a picture of the big fluffy flakes falling from the sky and white blanket of snow covering my lawn, car, and street this morning in Maple Leaf!

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  9. We've got a fair dusting on Beacon Hill at 6:45am, Monday, and it's still coming down pretty steadily.

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  10. Well, it is dumping snow on Beacon Hill at 6am Monday.

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  11. Well, it's Monday a.m. And there's 2 inches of snow in my backyard in Wedgewood at 150' elevation...

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  12. Over 2 inches of snow here in North Seattle at 450 feet elevation, as of 7:40am. Noticed the NWS finally issued a winter weather advisory at 7:03, after there was already an inch and a half of snow on the ground. How did they not see this coming until after it was already a reality? Snow 1 - forecasters 0.

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