With winter half over, Puget Sound is enjoying mostly mild weather, and the region could — maybe — make it through the season without significant snowfall.
“I don’t think we’re going to see any big producer, right now,” said meteorologist Johnny Burg with the National Weather Service office in Seattle. “But we can’t rule it out.”
The Northeast is digging out from a blizzard, but the only Seattle snow was .6 of an inch recorded Dec. 18 at Sea-Tac Airport, Burg said Monday.
Ads for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, Feb. 20-24 in the state Convention Center, have some residents dreaming of spring and thinking we just might make it without a whiteout. Will Seattle escape the kind of snow that closes schools, knocks out power, sends cars crashing and costs the mayor his job?
So far, snow has been falling in the right places. Snowpack in the Olympics and Cascades is near 100 percent — the water storage bank for drinking, irrigation, salmon survival and summer recreation. Residents of Spokane and other parts of Eastern Washington have handled their share of snow without the hysteria that grips Seattle broadcasters when snow is in the forecast.
University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences professor Cliff Mass says there’s still a chance, but the snow threat is nearing an end.
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