The afternoon has been relatively nice across the area but we’ll have some passing showers later this evening. Most rivers are also on the retreat after our extremely wet last two weeks.
One more storm system developing in the Pacific will be headed our way into Thursday and that will bring more rain to the area overnight through the morning hours of Thursday. It’ll also be blustery with this next system with wind gusts over 30mph from the morning commute into the afternoon.
After the lunch hour Thursday, we’ll go to a mix of showers and sunbreaks in the lowlands and it will stay breezy from the southwest. By mid-late afternoon, a surge of westerly wind will hit the area. Locations of stronger winds will be in the same spots as last night and this morning but wind speeds will not be as strong — gusts mainly in the 35-45mph range with isolated gusts to 50mph on Whidbey Island. A Wind Advisory has been issued for much of the area but does not include King County or most of Kitsap County as the central Sound will be more “protected” from strong winds by the Olympic Mountains to the west.
While these winds are stiff, the tree damage and power outages from this next hit of wind should not be nearly as extensive.
In the mountains, we’ll have a Winter Weather Advisory in effect for 6-12 inches of mountain pass snow through Thursday. Expect periods of snow and difficult pass travel to persist almost indefinitely into Christmas week as we’ll continue to be in a moist and chilly weather pattern.
In the lowlands, beyond Thursday’s storminess, we’ll see things calm down in the following days with occasional showers, sunbreaks, and highs in the 40s. By around the middle of next week, snow levels in the overnight and early morning hours could be low enough for some wet snow or rain/snow mix in the foothills and spots across the far north, but the chance of meaningful lowland snow for Christmas appears slim at this time.
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