Snow Continues Next Week

Our cold, snowy weather pattern looks like it will hang around throughout next week.  And it could be even snowier.

Thus far, the current weather pattern has had the Northwest in the cold air.  But most of the precipitation has been going on to our south.  Here's the analysis of precipitation for the past 3 days (Feb 2-4).  The heaviest precipitation has been in an atmospheric river from northern California into southern Idaho.



This moisture plume bent northward for a few hours last night giving our area a few inches of snow.  We'll see a similar thing happen tonight, albeit with a bit more snow than we had last night.  Here's what the ECMWF thinks our snowfall will be.  More snow on the Palouse and Spokane than up in Colville.


We should see some more snow showers on Wednesday night, but then things should taper off on Thursday through Saturday.  Unfortunately, that means we're going to get colder.  Lows on Thursday morning will be in the teens, and on Friday morning we'll probably see single digits.  Our daytime temperatures should still get up into the 20s to possibly near 30 as this shallow arctic air mass washes out.

After a renewal of snow showers on Saturday night and Sunday, we could see another arctic intrusion early next week.  Below is the weather forecast map for Friday.  It shows the continued strong high pressure in the Gulf of Alaska.  This forces storms from the west to either go south of the high pressure (into California), or around it to the north. 


In the weather map above, you can see a storm way up in the Yukon (next to Alaska).  It is forecast to drop down into our area by early next week.  First it would bring us more of the dry fluffy snow we've been seeing.  But it could also bring colder air than we've seen so far.  The European models are suggesting the possibility of a fairly strong arctic front around Tuesday with much colder temperatures.  If this pans out, it could be a concern for livestock.

But then an interesting pattern change is forecast to take place.  Below is the forecast map for next Thursday.  The high pressure in the Gulf of Alaska has moved north.  If this happens, it allows Pacific storms to move into our area (red arrow) from the west.  They would bring with them lots of moisture, which when combined with our cold air, would result in lots of snow in the latter half of next week.


Now, this is still 10 days away.  A lot could happen to change this forecast.  But the ECMWF model has been hinting for the past few days at a bigger snowstorm for our area around the end of next week.  So stay tuned on this.

To wrap up, here's what we have coming up.

  • A few inches of snow tonight and Wednesday morning.  More snow in Spokane than in Colville.
  • Snow showers possible Wednesday night.
  • Clearing and colder Thursday morning through Saturday morning with lows in the teens and single digits.  But highs still in the 20s.
  • More snow could start up again early next week.
  • Another arctic air mass possible around Tuesday.
  • Heavier snow possible late next week.



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