Snoqualmie Valley Weather: Are we in for the season’s first snow?

It’s that time of the year when we start talking about snow. We have our first winter advisory of the season.

A Winter Storm Watch is in effect from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon. 4 to 8 inches of snow is possible.

Forecasting snow here is challenging. We have two things going against us out here for this event. i.e., winds and possible warm air beating out the snow.

Timing is everything; it can come down to the last few hours. Our east winds will pick up late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, with 30 to 40 mph gusts possible. That could keep some of the forecasted snow away from us. The warm air from the south could beat the moisture here, and everything could be a cold rain.

Here is a chart showing our possible wind gusts at 4 am Wednesday.

When it comes to snow totals for an event, the NWS does lean a little toward the lower counts, as we’ve seen in the past. But snow totals in our area are very difficult to predict. Here are charts from two weather models showing snow totals at 2 pm Wednesday.

These snow models can have difficulty accounting for winds; the snow totals shown are higher than I think we will get out here. “The White Flag is North Bend area.”

Model #1

Model #2

Model two has more snow towards Seattle, the Eastside, and up North, while model number one keeps the higher snow totals away from Seattle and mainly to the Eastside and up North.

Events like this can change in just a few hours and are very hard to predict. There are so many variables. If anything drastic changes in the forecast, an update will be posted as soon as possible.

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