Winds peaked Thursday morning with gusts of 40-50 mph around Puget Sound in some spots with sporadic power outages and tree damage. A wind gust of 50 mph was recorded at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and 46 mph at SEA Airport. It remains a little blustery tonight but no strong winds are expected ahead.
Into tonight, it will be drier for a while but by dawn, a weather system bringing stormy and windy weather to Oregon will spread some rainfall into the southern one-half of the area for the morning commute. In the mountains, we’ll have some snow on Friday morning from about Stevens Pass southward. A Winter Weather Advisory will go into effect early Friday morning lasting into Saturday for the Cascades above 3,500 feet elevation. Also, avalanche danger will be high into the weekend.
While the southern half of the lowlands gets rain early in the day Friday, it’ll be drier across the north. But that won’t last as more rain will fall at times from Friday afternoon into Friday night. It will also be breezy at times with gusts to 25-30 mph in spots, but no high winds. The additional rainfall will keep our landslide risk elevated.
More rain comes through on Saturday and Sunday with another inch or more of rain in the lowlands and more mountain snow. Highs will be in the 40s to lower 50s.We’ll see some drier weather Monday and Tuesday before more rain for New Year’s Day.
AVALANCHE WARNING:
The Northwest Avalanche Center issued an avalanche warning for the West North, West Central, West South, Mt Hood, Snoqualmie Pass, and Stevens Pass zones, noting that Thursday is a day to avoid traveling in all avalanche terrain, including lower angle or flat areas beneath large, steep slopes.
Check the forecast at nwac.us for additional details.