Forecast Calls For More Snow It’S Expected To Hit Friday, May Turn To Rain By Saturday

Wed., Dec. 13, 2000

By Mike Prager mikeprager15@gmail.com (509) 459-5454

Inland Northwesterners shivering from the frigid weather can take heart.

It’s going to warm up by Saturday, but with potentially heavy snow as milder air arrives off the Pacific Ocean.

Forecasters on Tuesday said their computer models call for snow Friday with a chance that the precipitation will change to rain Saturday. Cooling behind the storm would bring snow showers Sunday.

“We are going to see some faster westerly flow coming into the Pacific Northwest,” said forecaster Robin Fox of the National Weather Service in Spokane.

“It’ll be tapping into some moisture from the south,” she said. “The low-level winds are going to be increasing tremendously, which would scour out the cold air.”

Initially, the storm is expected to bring a possibility of heavy snow, especially to the mountains, before the warmer air changes it to rain in the lowlands.

“We could get some significant snows, especially in the mountains,” Fox said.

Because the storm won’t arrive for two more days, forecasters were reluctant to put any numbers on likely snow accumulations in the valleys.

Last week, forecasters used the same computer models to predict the frigid temperatures this week.

While the computer forecasts had called for lows near minus 5 degrees in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, the actual lows turned out to be 5 and 6 degrees late Sunday and early Tuesday. The high Tuesday was 17.

The worst of the arctic blast remained east of the Rockies and was spilling across the Plains and Midwest.

This was not the first arctic outbreak in the Inland Northwest this season. A record low for the date of minus 2 was recorded in Spokane on Nov. 11.

November’s average temperature was 8 degrees below normal, making it the second-coldest November on record in Spokane. Also, the 4.4 inches of snow that fell Nov. 8 ranked as the fourth-largest single snowfall by that date on record in Spokane.

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