Yesterday was a significant snow event for the region with the lowlands receiving 3-8 inches in general, on top of the considerable snows of the past week. The last week or so has turned into the most snowy, cold period since the great event of the last week of December 1996. Take a look at the temps at Sea-Tac compared to normal (graph). Our HIGH temps have been below the normal mins (blue
line) for nine days now. However, 1996 made what we are going through look like child's play...many locations had nearly two feet on the ground after two major storms...my house at 23 inches on the ground on Dec 29th and earlier that week the worst ice storm in 50 years hit the southern Sound. The snow was followed intense warm rain that melted the snow causing flooding and landslides.For the next two days we will be in a break from the action. This morning a few light snowshowers remain (see radar), mainly over SW Washington. These will lessen during the next f
ew hours and the remainder of the day and Tuesday will be generally dry. The low center is now moving south of us and this will pull some cooler air back into the region (see plot of model pressure and temperature at 7 AM)Another strong Pacific system will be moving towards us Wednesday, but temperatures will be warmer than the last go around...which will place us in the familar snow turning to rain, marginal temperature situation that local meteorologists love. I will look at the storm in more detail later in the morning.....
