Rare 'Blizzard Warning' issued for Olympic, Cascade mountains Tuesday | ARC Seattle

A snowy Snoqualmie Pass this morning. If you're planning on traveling over the mountain passes, you might want to hold off for a bit, especially tomorrow. We are in for another round of mountain snow this week, and even some blizzard-like conditions, too. Those blizzard conditions are pretty rare for our area. Meteorologist Kristen Clark joins us from the Weather Center this morning. Kristen, you've issued a weather warn day for these conditions. Can you explain what blizzard conditions are and what we're expecting in the mountains today and the days ahead? Stephen, Tyra, can you guess the last time we had a blizzard warning in the Cascades? It was like eight or nine years ago, wasn't it? Yeah, over 11 years ago, December of 2012. That was the last time a blizzard warning was issued for the Cascade Mountains. And we look like we could have the same kind of conditions again this week, as we have the last time it was issued. Yep, there it is, December of 2012, over 11 years ago, we had a blizzard warning issued for the Cascade Mountains. And now we have one issued for the Cascade and also the Olympic Mountains, you notice. We will have this in effect here from 4 o'clock Tuesday morning, going throughout the day tomorrow, expiring Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock for the possibility of heavy snow, high winds, and whiteout conditions, severely impacting past travel tomorrow. So this is just one of several types of winter warnings issued by the National Weather Service. The exact definition of a blizzard is heavy snow, sustained winds of 35 miles per hour or greater, and visibility less than a quarter of a mile for at least three hours. And that criteria will easily be met at the Cascade Mountain passes tomorrow. We can even see winds as high as 65 miles per hour. So near whiteout conditions and zero visibility can be expected. Now, we have snow actively falling today. Before the strong winds arrive tomorrow, we could see a cool foot of snow at Stevens Pass Ski Area by 11 o'clock tonight. And anywhere from four to nine inches from Hurricane Ridge, Crystal Mountain, including Snoqualmie Summit, and the Mount Baker Ski Area. Now, mind you, this is just through tonight. We're going to tack on an additional foot to maybe three feet by the end of the day Wednesday for a grand total of 29 inches at the summit at Snoqualmie, and easily over 30 inches from Crystal, White Mountain, and I should say White Pass, into the Stevens Pass area. And there's 42 inches of fresh snow at the Mount Baker Ski Area. So big snow. Great news, Steven Tyer, obviously, for the Cascade Ski Areas as we start off the season with below normal snowfall, certainly making up for lost snow time now. But this is going to be severely impacting pass travel. It's the kind of snow that could be crippling, and do expect some of those temporary closures along many of our main routes over the mountains on Tuesday. Kristen, I'm just thinking back the contrast to traveling over Snoqualmie Pass like I did yesterday, and what we're seeing today and tomorrow. If people have to travel over the mountain passes over the next couple of days, what's the safest times, would you say, to do that? Yeah, we have several opportunities for maybe some easier pass travel ahead. Today, tomorrow, probably not the best. If you can delay your travel plans, you may want to do that, even though we could see a brief time tonight of a little bit of rain at Snoqualmie Pass. That's where traction tires are currently required. You can see all the snow-covered road conditions at the current moment. But this is a look at the extended forecast specifically for Snoqualmie Pass. We have the snow today, blizzard conditions tomorrow with the wind. Now, the wind becomes much calmer on Wednesday. Even though we will still have lingering snow, we'll have a few sunbreaks for slightly better pass travel on Wednesday. Then we're back to light snow on Thursday. But notice on Friday, sunny but cold, just 19 degrees at the summit. We're talking single digits for lows into Saturday morning. And in the teens, we stay with another brush of light snow potentially on Saturday. So if you were to travel over the Cascade Passes, maybe Wednesday afternoon, then again Friday despite the chill, and then later on in the weekend on Sunday as we're having that cold sunshine back with us for the end of the weekend. Look at that low between Friday and Saturday night. Am I looking at that right? Six degrees? You got it. Goodness, Kristen, this morning, we even saw snow in Whatcom County, places like Linden, even Bellingham. Can we expect any more lowland snow this week? Tyra, that was just a teaser of potentially what's to come here. There's a look at Whatcom County, H Street, that's right along the border of BC. There's H Street Road right there earlier today. This runs parallel to the international border. And we had a little dusting, you notice, primarily on the grassy surfaces. The road was just wet, but this was our first little brush of lowland snow as winter is really settling in here the next few days. This is the temperature tracker for high temperatures in Seattle. Check out Friday and Saturday, 28 degrees for highs. We barely break the freezing mark later on this weekend to start the upcoming weekend and looking at specifically those forecast highs area-wide. Now, Olympia, Bellingham could tie a record low maximum temperature for the date with 18 degrees for a high in Bellingham, 30 in Olympia. We're gonna be sitting around 27 degrees in Seattle for such a winter chill. And yes, this is all with the arrival of an Arctic cold front. It begins to bear down on Western Washington late Wednesday into early Thursday. And with the leading edge of that cold air, there could be just enough moisture in place to kick off the potential of some snow near sea level. You notice that it's not a widespread whiteout, but there will be pockets of at least some snow. And of course, that Fraser outflow wind will be howling over Whatcom County into the San Juan Islands. That's typically our cold air conduit that brings in that modified Arctic air into Puget Sound. That will be alive and well by Thursday night. So this begs the question, will we see accumulation here at sea level in Puget Sound? Well, we are thinking that we will see light lowland snow Thursday night for a time. This won't be a widespread blanket of snow, but there could be a few spots, yes, picking up on maybe a minor coating and could be primarily on the grassy elevated surfaces, much like what we saw today in Whatcom County. For those lowland snow lovers wanting more, we're looking at a weekend storm to move into this lingering cold air. And that could set the stage for maybe more lowland snow, could mix in with sleet and maybe even some freezing rain for a time Saturday. Best potential of that at this point looks to be from Seattle South to the Portland Metro. Now, this cold air begins to ease on Sunday and conditions do finally look to dry out for some colder sunshine Sunday afternoon after a few early morning rain, snow showers. So winter weather, for sure the next few days, the exact details on how much snow and where will be ironed out as we head forward to the end of this week. I'm just sitting here thinking, what is mother nature thinking? She was like, oh, you guys in Western Washington thought it was gonna be a mild winter. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Just wait. This is payback for that mild and benign December that we had. No kidding. Thanks, Kristen.