Don’t expect much more snow in Western Washington as El Nino awakens

Take photos of snow in your yards now because it’s unlikely there will be any more if you live in the Puget Sound lowlands.

The effects of a strong El Nino will soon begin to take effect – if they haven’t already, according to Cliff Mass, University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences.

Simply put, Western Washington will start to see drier weather with fewer chances of snow. It’s going to be the exact opposite of what we experienced on Sunday, Mass told KIRO Radio. Light snow fell in many areas of Western Washington Sunday night.

“Seattle and Western Washington will be less rainy and chances of snow will be far less than normal,” Mass explained. “I don’t think we’ll see much more snow and I think the rain will be far less than December.”

The snowpack in the Cascades is above normal, according to Mass. They are currently in good shape for the ski season. Stevens Pass received an additional 4 inches of snow in the past 48 hours; Snoqualmie received 8 inches between Sunday night and Monday morning.

Another 6″ of fresh over night, plus 2″ so far this morning. A nice lil reset to start the week off right! pic.twitter.com/tghq8eeboL

— Summit at Snoqualmie (@SummitSnow411) January 4, 2016

Mass says to enjoy the snow now. He doesn’t expect the trend of heavy snowfall to continue. Over the next few weeks the snowpack could start to drop.

“We could end the winter with less than 100 percent of normal snowpack,” Mass said. A strong El Nino typically melts the snowpack to about 80 percent of normal, he continued.

To be clear, there will still be snow in the mountains, just not the huge dumps that occurred in December. Mass called that level of snowfall “improbable.”

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