SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
KIRO 7’s Morgan Palmer: Another Feb. ’19 snowstorm could be on way
Jan 10, 2020, 3:46 PM | Updated: Jan 12, 2020, 4:13 pm
Snow blanketed this Kirkland street and the rest of the region for weeks in February 2019. Could another such snowstorm be coming? (Nicole Jennings/KIRO Radio)
(Nicole Jennings/KIRO Radio)
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For Northwesteners, it’s hard to forget the February 2019 snowstorm that blanketed the Puget Sound for two weeks.
And so with snow in the forecast now, the question that came to mind for many residents was whether this could happen again.
KIRO 7 meteorologist Morgan Palmer said it’s certainly possible.
“Are we going to have a repeat of what we saw last February? We could,” Palmer said to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “I know that we’re kind of on the fence about that, but we have several things going on, especially when we go into Sunday and Monday.”
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On Sunday afternoon, extremely cold, dry air from British Columbia will travel south over Seattle, bringing biting temperatures to the region. Despite the air’s dryness, the speed at which it comes in could cause a few inches of snow in certain areas.
The Puget Sound will dry out early in the week, but that does not mean that things will get warmer.
“Once we go into Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we’ll have some of the coldest temperatures we’ve seen since November of 2010 — Thanksgiving of 2010,” Palmer said.
What does that look like? It could mean a low of 18 in Seattle on Wednesday morning and highs on Tuesday and Wednesday in the 20s in Seattle, according to Palmer’s current projections. The last time it stayed below 30 degrees for 48 straight hours was that same 2010 snowstorm.
How does that affect chances of snow?
“Whenever we get big, cold snaps like this that come in, and we’re locked in the cold for days, sometimes when we start to warm things up, Pacific moisture gets thrown up into the cold air that’s in place, and we have snow,” Palmer said. “Some of the long-range indications are that next Thursday or so … we could really have to watch for the bigger snow event.”
So, while drivers should all be prepared for an icy and possibly snowy commute to work Monday morning, any notable snowstorm is more likely at the end of the week. It’s too soon to predict how many inches this could mean if it does snow, but “history tells us that we might really have to watch for when we come out of this cold blast,” Palmer said.
In the meantime, expect colder air than you have felt in a decade.
Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
