Weather collision brings rain to Tacoma and more snow to Seattle
Cold arctic air from Canada is headbutting a warm and wet system moving in from the Pacific all week, and the battleground is Puget Sound.
Meanwhile, snow has closed mountain passes and coastal towns and roads are flooding from combined high tides and storms surges.
Tacoma, Olympia and points south will see rain in the coming days while Seattle and areas north will see more snow, according to the National Weather Service.
Snow has already won in the mountains where it shut down Interstate 90 across Snoqualmie Pass on Monday, according to the state Department of Transportation.
The cold air coming down from British Columbia’s Fraser Valley was forecast to continue through most of the week, said NWS meteorologist Jeff Michalski. The freezing air was countered by ocean storms headed inland from the south-southwest, he said.
The forecast calls for the snow level to hover between 500 and 1,000 feet in Pierce and Thurston counties, according to the NWS.
“There’s definitely a rain-snow mix possible,” Michalski said.
Rain is in the forecast all week in the South Sound with highs going from 40 degrees on Monday to 49 degrees on Thursday. Lows will hover around 34 degrees most of the week.
The Hood Canal area saw the most rain in the region, according to Michalski, with 2 to 3 inches of precipitation falling from noon Sunday to noon Monday.
Pierce County saw 1-2 inches of rain Sunday.
The last week of 2021 saw daily snowfall somewhere in Puget Sound. Seattle had 9.2 inches of snow in December, more than the city typically gets all winter, according to AccuWeather.
Anywhere from 6-12 inches of snow was expected to fall in the Cascades on Monday. That would be on top of the 9-18 inches that fell overnight, the NWS said. Snow also closed White Pass.
The warm weather mass was expected to push inland Thursday, and rains should ease up Friday.
While the weekend might be dry across the region, trouble on rivers could just be starting as snow melts and saturated ground feeds creeks. Michalski pegged the Chehalis River as a possible flooder.
Monday’s high tide pushed into Westport, situated at the mouth of Grays Harbor. Further south, U.S. 101 in Raymond was closed due to flooding. Along the Naselle River, 101 had water over the roadway, according to WSDOT.
This story was originally published January 3, 2022 at 2:09 PM.
