WeatherWatcher: The S Word

There's been quite some talk the past couple of days of the chance of snow in the Northwest. I wanted to do an update on this to clarify what is going on, and what the actual chance really is for Shoreline and Lake Forest Park. 

First off what is happening right now: a cold snap. We are getting the western edge of a massive cold high from the arctic. No, this is not a polar vortex as the media likes to call it now whenever cold air surges down from the arctic. This is just an early season shot of cold air from the usual suspected source. We have low pressure off the coast and high pressure east of the Rockies and Cascades. This is generating our strong winds which is also bringing the cold air into our area. This set up is going to last until Thursday. 

Wednesday night and mainly Thursday morning there is a low pressure system moving in off the coast. Right now it looks like it is going to move in around the Portland area and stay south. This is the typical set up for a Puget Sound snow if it were later in the winter and the air mass north and east of us were colder. 

The nature of this weather pattern as with many of these similar set ups in the past are very uncertain. It only takes a slight change in the path of the center of that low pressure to give us a winter wonderland, or rain, or a mix of both. I can see it over the various forecasts I watch where one person says rain, the other says snow, one says snow turning to rain, another says freezing rain. Another indication is when all of them are changing their forecasts every few hours on the same day.

Bottom line, be ready, there is a threat of a slight chance of winter weather, at least in the early morning hours of Thursday before heating by sunlight adjusts the temperature. I caution the slight chance, my personal experience studying the weather over Shoreline for the past 25 years tells me that this is not likely to become anything serious, at least not this week. Sorry kids, probably no snow day for you this week.

The weekend looks like it's going to clear up again, and with those clear skies the possibility of more cold air returns. There may even be a renewed threat of winter weather going into next week but right now it's too early to tell for sure.

For current weather conditions and winter storm updates, visit my web page at http://www.shorelineweather.com