Yes that’s right, we have a chance of snow in the Tri-Cities. The big weather story this week, though, will be cold temperatures. There’s been a lot of uncertainty surrounding what to expect this week, but it looks like the models have finally reached some sort of agreement on what we can look forward to. We’re not expecting record breaking conditions, but it’ll still be chilly.
This cool down is actually a big win for the weather models, which had been showing a significant drop in temperature mid-January since late-December. While there had been model disagreement about precipitation values and just how cold it would get, they have held strong to the notion that we were going to get colder.
While some models had been showing significant snowfall for the Columbia Basin, it doesn’t look like this will be the case. We do have chances of snow, with the best chance being Monday night. Most people in and near the Tri-Cities will see under two inches of accumulation. The closer you are to the Blue Mountains, the more snow you will get, but even towards Walla Walla snowfall values should remain under three inches.
This, combined with frequent cloud cover, will help to keep us a little warmer than originally expected. Instead of reaching the single digits in the basin, temperatures will likely bottom out between 13° and 20° on Tuesday night. Highs are expected to dip into the 20s on Wednesday. We will definitely have an arctic airmass in our midst, but our low elevation really helps here.
Also helping us keep out of the single digits will be a lack of snow on the ground. When there are copious amounts of snow on the ground, it decreases the amount of heating that can occur during the day. This is because the white of the snow reflects most of the energy of the sun back to space rather than allowing it to be absorbed by the ground and radiated into the atmosphere as heat.
Periodic breezy conditions will create dangerously cold wind chills. We can look forward to winds gusting to 40 mph Sunday afternoon. Monday will be relatively calm compared to the last couple days, but winds will again ramp up overnight Monday into Tuesday. Wind forecasts beyond two to three days are notoriously inaccurate, but there seems to be another shot at strong winds Thursday evening into Friday.
Wind chills Tuesday morning could reach below 10° Tuesday morning, meaning that the cold air combined with the wind will remove heat from your body as quickly as 10° with calm wind. As Monday night/Tuesday morning have our best chance of snow, you should also be prepared for areas of blowing snow and whiteout conditions. We don’t have to get a ton of snow for it to create driving problems. When I lived in Nebraska, there were a couple of times when roads would be impassible because of wind and snow. Almost always when the storm ended, we had less than three inches on the ground.
This week will be a rough one for travel across the passes. Snow levels will be well below pass level and snow is likely almost every single day. If you have to cross the mountains, make sure you are prepared to have significant travel delays and make sure you have chains. Washington State Patrol has been actively checking to make sure people have chains on when they are required. As fellow WeatherTogether blogger Charlie Phillips pointed out in his recent post, a couple inches of snow are even possible in Seattle Sunday night into Monday.
While it will create travel headaches, this snow is good for the mountains. Right now the Washington Cascades have about half the snowpack they should have for this time of year. It will be fun to see how that changes in the coming weeks.
I will continue to keep tabs on the situation and post updates here as well as on Tri-Cities Weather. You can also sign up to be immediately notified of new blog posts by subscribing via email at the top of the sidebar (to the right on computer, below on mobile).
Stay safe everyone, thanks for reading, and have a great week!
