Lowland Snow (AGAIN), Powerful Easterly Winds on the Eastside, and Central Oregon Temperature Drops to -38F

 Lots of weather action occurring or will soon happen.

Amazing Low Temps

Last night, many Washington State locations enjoyed their coldest low temperatures of the year (see below).  Teens were reached over much of western Washington and below-zero temps were evident across eastern WA.  Some snowy WA valleys (e.g., Mazama) reached -15F.

But the real crazy lows were in valleys within the high plateau of eastern Oregon, where several locations dropped below -20F.

But if you want insane cold, the hamlet of Seneca, just north of Burns, dropped to -38 F.

Strong Easterly Winds

 I have received several worried emails from folks living on the Puget Sound eastside, worried about powerful easterly winds.   These folks went through hell last November with the "bomb cyclone" event and are not a little shell-shocked from the experience.

As shown by the forecast map of sea-level pressure (solid lines) and low-level temperature for Thursday morning (7AM), there will be a large pressure difference across the Cascade between cold, high-pressure over eastern WA and a modest low-pressure area moving up the coast.   This will cause strong easterly (from the east) winds over the Cascades and the western foothills.

Below are the maximum surface winds predicted through Thursday at 4 PM, with the greatest winds in the familiar wind corridor south of I-90 from roughly Issaquah to Enumclaw and stretching towards Renton.

30-60 kts in places, but NOTHING like November.

Snow

As the offshore low-pressure area approaches the Oregon coast, snow will push northward, first over NW Oregon and then into SW Washington.

Predicted total snowfall (NOT SNOWDEPTH) through 4 PM Friday is shown below.  Light snow over the lowlands, but it won't add up to much.  More over the south Cascades and Olympics.  

The sinking easterly flow west of the Cascades noted above will greatly reduce the precipitation and snow over the eastern side of Puget Sound.  The opposite near the Olympics.

Turning to Seattle SnowWatch (supported by the City of Seattle), you can see the light snowfall Thursday night and Friday morning.  Not the end of the world.😀😄.  But it might get slippery...so drive carefully.