Believe It: It’s Still Winter And It’s Going To Snow

Forget about spring. The winter of extremes is getting extreme again.

A fresh blanket of snow, followed by another shot of Yukon cold, ought to send this message: “It still is February,” said forecaster Dennis Ray.

Temperatures could drop into single digits Monday and Tuesday nights - about 20 degrees below normal.

“After 50-degree weather, highs of 25 degrees and lows of eight are going to feel pretty cold,” Ray said.

The National Weather Service on Thursday issued a winter storm watch for today throughout the Inland Northwest and surrounding mountains.

One to three inches of snow are expected today, even though the high is expected to reach 41 degrees this afternoon.

Then, snow showers tonight through Sunday morning will give way to a glancing blow from an Arctic air mass. That cold weather is plunging south from the Yukon Territory of Canada on the heels of today’s forecasted storm, which dropped Thursday from the Gulf of Alaska.

The deepest cold is expected to go into Montana and the Great Plains, but the Inland Northwest won’t go unscathed.

All of this is good news in the mountains where mid-February’s warm-up brought rain to higher slopes and left skiers with the doldrums.

With the return of winter, ski resorts have been getting pounded with new snow. Mount Spokane had 10 inches of fresh powder Thursday morning. There is at least 18 inches of new snow awaiting skiers this morning at 49 Degrees North. At Schweitzer Mountain in North Idaho more than two feet of new snow was reported by Thursday afternoon.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Change in air Although the high is expected to reach 41 degrees by this afternoon, one to three inches of snow are forecast for today. Snow showers are predicted for tonight through Sunday morning.