Lowland snow looming for Seattle region early next week

Washington is expecting anywhere from eight to 18 inches of snowfall in the passes from Saturday through Sunday night.

For Seattle, most of the incoming precipitation will be rain, but between Sunday night and Monday, the city could have snow for the first time this season.

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Although light snow is expected tomorrow across the Cascades, a Winter Storm Watch has been issued for Saturday evening-Monday morning for the Central Cascades as a stronger system brings heavier snowfall/high snow amounts. Travel is likely to be difficult over the Passes. #wawx pic.twitter.com/ye5DJF63wW

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) November 25, 2022

In the lowlands, more than a half-inch of rain is expected to fall, with breezes touching 30 mph on Sunday.

“Well, we’ve been talking about this front that’s going to come through this weekend and usher in a substantially cooler airmass, our coldest airmass of the season thus far. And then after that, it’s going to kind of dry out on Monday into Tuesday,” said Ted Buehner, KIRO News Meteorologist. “It’s the middle of the week that’s got the big question mark written all over at this point. Got the cold air in place, but now you need the moisture in order to create any snow. So if we get anything right now, I can tell you that our snow levels are going to be below 1,000 feet.”

Highs this week will struggle to get to 40 degrees, according to Buehner, while overnight lows will be down in the mid-20s to low-30s.

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“The question is that moisture, so we have another system coming in on Tuesday night into Wednesday, may even spill over into Thursday,” Buehner said. “And that may be our best chance for any lowland snow at this point. Right. If I had to say at this point, a few spots might get a few inches and others will get nothing.”

Seattle averages just 6.3 inches of snow a year, but as of late, the Emerald City has had to deal with increasingly extreme weather bouts. The top 10 snowiest days in Seattle’s history (since 1945) were all charted before 1985, except for one.

February 13, 2021 saw 8.9 inches of snow at one time, tying a date in 1968 for the sixth-most snow in a single day. Four months later, Seattle saw one of its most severe heatwaves in history.

Seattle still only averages four to five days of snow annually, according to Seattle Weather Blog, with Queen Anne, Beacon Hill, and First Hill being flagged as the neighborhoods that see the most snow in Seattle.

December still remains the coldest month of the year for Seattle, 0.1 degrees colder than February on average.

Follow Ted Buehner, the KIRO FM news meteorologist on Twitter