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Snow flurries linger, potential for more this week

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MONDAY MORNING FORECAST: (Meteorologist Nick Allard) Happy Monday! What a night! We’ve had reports of snow from 5-9″ from Everett to Duvall and even across the water in Poulsbo around 8.5″. The wind caused the heavier snow, producing a convergence zone. That zone is still around, but drying out, so we only have pockets of either light snow or even flurries.

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North wind will increase across the area pushing cold and drier air in, which will help to decrease the snow showers even more. I expect the convergence zone to mainly end by mid morning. We’ll continue to see spotty and mainly light snow showers around Olympia south. We’ll stay mostly cloudy and temps will more than likely fall a degree or two from where they are this morning, thanks to the colder and drier air.

The overall story then is this: Look for light snow showers or flurries this morning, most consistently falling around the convergence zone, Port Angeles and from around Olympia south. The snow showers will decrease and after about mid to late morning, they should taper for most of the area. I expect some flurries around the parts of the area and some light snow showers mainly south of Olympia. I only expect trace amounts to maybe an inch or two, but I think we’ll stay closer to trace amounts of snow.

Temps are around freezing everywhere, but in the low-20s in Bellingham. Cold air and windy weather in Bellingham with windy weather will make the wind chill pretty nasty and potentially dangerous. North wind will increase for all of us, keep temps in the low-30s to mid-30s through at least Thursday. Overnight lows will be in the mid-20s. I think we could see problems with ice overnight tonight.

Tomorrow we’ll see mostly cloudy skies and may have some flurries, but any real shower activity would be south of Olympia.

LATE WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY: As the coldest morning will be Wednesday morning, we’ll start a very slow process of “warming” the atmosphere. Often, when we have a sharp and prolonged cold snap, we get out of it by way of warmer Pacific air moving in from the ocean and eventually modifying -- or warming -- the cold air stuck around Puget Sound. Of course, that Pacific air is laden with moisture. This looks to be our best chance of lowland snow.

It will be cold enough throughout Wednesday, Thursday and even into Friday for snow everywhere -- down to sea level. Any moisture that falls is likely to fall as snow (freezing rain/ice is a far lower probability but will need to be watched for). Significant snowfall can happen in these circumstances and lowland snow occurs in well more than half of these setups.

How much? Will it be disruptive? Might it not snow at all? We just don't have any answers for that at this point. And after all, we have lots of weather to get through between now and then, but just be aware that late Wednesday through Thursday and probably well into Friday will be a period your meteorologists will be watching very, very closely.

NEXT WEEKEND: We probably get warm enough for just lowland rain by next weekend but could still have some low snow levels at times.




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