Next storm on horizon

Monday night’s snowfall, which brought with it a spate of fender-benders across the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene region, was a mere harbinger of an impending storm expected today or early Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

The next storm is “expected to produce a longer-duration snowfall event,” Weather Service meteorologist Jeremy Wolf said Tuesday.

The storm that began late Monday and continued into Tuesday morning was “intense, but brief,” Wolf said.

But it and the promise of more snow this week is enough for two of the region’s five ski areas to announce openings. Lookout Pass on the Idaho-Montana border received 14 inches of new snow and plans to open Thursday. Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg plans to open Friday.

The storm brought less than 3 1/2 inches of snow to Spokane’s South Hill and 1.3 inches at Spokane International Airport. About 40 collisions, most on Interstate 90, were reported between 10 p.m. Monday and 8 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The Idaho State Police reported about 60 slide-offs and crashes in the five northern counties between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Tuesday. Only a couple of those resulted in injuries, said Lt. Chris Schenck.

The storm left 6 inches of snow in Sandpoint, 4 inches in Rathdrum and about 3 inches in Coeur d’Alene.

The next storm system is expected to last longer, perhaps 12 to 18 hours, and bring even more snow to the region, Wolf said. Behind the storm, very cool temperatures through the weekend will assure the snow stays around for a while. The Weather Service was predicting a low around 13 degrees Saturday night.

The timing of the snow Monday night and Tuesday morning wasn’t ideal for clearing roads before the morning commute, said Spokane County Roads Operations Superintendent Wayne Storey.

“I think our biggest problem is the snow came fairly late and the de-icer hadn’t had a chance to work,” Storey said.

Spokane County will have crews on 24-hour notice to handle upcoming storms.

The city of Spokane began plowing at 5:30 a.m., said Ann Deasy-Nolan, streets department spokeswoman. Monday evening reports indicated only an inch of snow would fall in Spokane, Deasy-Nolan said.

Crews finished plowing emergency access routes, hills and major arterials around 11 a.m., then began on minor arterials and residential streets. It takes about 24 hours to plow the entire city.

“If it starts to snow again they go back to the emergency access routes first,” Deasy-Nolan said.

Coeur d’Alene workers began plowing arterials at 4 a.m. and will concentrate today on clearing residential streets, city officials said.

Lookout Pass along Interstate 90 received 10 inches of snow Monday night and is reporting 22 inches accumulated at the summit and 16 inches at the mountain base. That’s enough to open at least nine of the resort’s 34 runs, said Jim Schreiber, Lookout’s marketing director.

“Everybody’s excited,” Schreiber said Tuesday. “We’re all ready to go.”

Silver Mountain has 22 inches at its summit and 18 inches mid-mountain, and managers are encouraged by another storm forecast for tonight and into Thursday.

“We hope to have the entire mountain open Friday,” Marketing Director Cathi Jerome said. “It looks like it will be more of a slow-moving storm and will really hover over us.”

No opening day has been announced yet for Schweitzer Mountain Resort near Sandpoint, Mount Spokane or 49 Degrees North east of Chewelah.

Schweitzer received about 6 inches in the storm and has about 17 inches atop the mountain, said Jennifer Ekstrom, communications manager. Usually the resort needs 24 to 36 inches of packed snow to open its slopes, she said.

“We’re waiting to see how the storm this week shapes up,” she said.

Mount Spokane also saw 6 inches, bringing its total to 8 – well short of the 24 to 30 inches needed to open, Marketing Manager Charlie Karavitis said. But that could change quickly this week, he said.

“What we’re waiting for at this point is the next storm,” Karavitis said. “If the next storm is a slow mover like the weather guys are talking about, I’m cautiously optimistic and will say we’ll be open Saturday with limited services and limited operation.”

Chewelah Peak, home of 49 Degrees North, has 9 inches on top and 4 inches at the lodge.

“We’ve not set an opening date,” Marketing Director Josh King said.

“At this point it’s still up in the air. We need another storm to come through before we can open.”