Wet Snow "Apocalypse"

 As forecast by the models, several inches of very heavy, wet snow fell last night.

The result included damage to vegetation, downed trees, and power outages.

This morning I risked life and limb to cycle into the UW on a slushy Burke Gilman trail.  At over a dozen locations I was blocked by fallen or leaning trees or bushes (see pictures below)

Many powerlines were downed by the wet snow, with poor vegetation management by local utilities an important contributor.

Lines down

Seattle had many customers in the dark:

Even more for Puget Sound Energy:

As I will discuss in depth in a future blog, we are experiencing one of the coldest mid-winters in regional history.  

And the cold is not over.

I have some news....more lowland snow will fall over the weekend.  For example, below is the predicted 24-h snowfall ending at 4 PM on Saturday.  

Relatively light over western Washington, with far more around Portland.

California is receiving massive amounts of precipitation and their reservoirs are well above normal.   Seattle's reservoirs are near normal.  Our snowpack is above normal over the southern Cascades and modestly below normal to the north.

At this point in time, there is no reason to be concerned about water resources over the West Coast during next summer.  In fact, the seasonal prediction by the European Center is for wetter than normal conditions for the next several months from Los Angeles to the Northwest.