West Coast braces for looming cold snap
Dec 22, 2021, 2:34 PM | Updated: Dec 23, 2021, 7:07 am
photo credit Tiffany Von Arnim via Flickr
UPDATE on Thursday 5:52am – No tornadoes were reported overnight on the Washington coast. Forecasters are watching temperatures as a cold front moves south from the Alaska panhandle.
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As Washington state prepares for a weather event that could leave temperatures in the teens for Seattle proper, that cold snap will herald strong winds Wednesday night with the National Weather Service warning that “thunderstorms moving onshore … may produce strong wind gusts or a brief tornado.”
Thunderstorms and a Marginal Risk (1/5) for severe weather remain possible across portions of the West Coast through this evening. Thunderstorms moving onshore ahead of a cold front may produce strong wind gusts or a brief tornado. See https://t.co/QMmU4tBZDt #WAwx #ORwx #CAwx pic.twitter.com/i6U6NAXG5W
— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) December 22, 2021
Moving through British Columbia on Wednesday, a cold front spreading inland through Coastal Washington will leave parts of the West Coast subject to wind gusts potentially as high as 70 mph. NWS cautions that the weather event could mean anything from small hail and sporadic lightning strikes to severe wind gusts and small tornadoes.
Severe weather will linger in the form of a cold front, which is expected to leave Western Washington in frigid temperatures for much of next week. Meteorologist Joe Boomgard-Zagrodnik from the Convergence Zone told KIRO Radio that the cold weather will likely become a “serious hazard.”
“The arctic air is going to start pouring through our mountain passes. Even the air over the ocean is going to be relatively cold the day after Christmas,” Boomgard-Zagrodnik said. “It looks like around the 29th or 30th [of December], it will bottom out.”
“It’s been amazing to see some of the predictions. They’re pretty close to all-time records according to some of the outlying models.”
The tornado risk becomes more severe as the cold weather moves south into the Oregon coast region, although tornadoes are not unheard of in Washington state. In November, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning in Kitsap County.
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