Snow to turn to freezing rain after dark

Snow falling across the Inland Northwest this afternoon is expected to turn to a mix of snow and freezing rain after nightfall and then turn to all freezing rain after 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. Friday in Spokane. The National Weather Service issued a freezing rain advisory for the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene areas, the Palouse region and the Columbia Basin west and southwest of Spokane. The freezing rain advisory extends from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Friday. As much as a tenth of an inch of ice could accumulate. Spokane should see temperatures rise above freezing by 9 or 10 a.m. Friday. At 5 p.m., the next band of precipitation was showing up on weather radar 100 miles southwest of Spokane and moving to the northeast at about 30 mph. Based on that, it appears the heaviest precipitation will arrive later this evening. As rush hour got started in Spokane this evening, traffic on Interstate 90 eastbound was creeping along at a stop-and-go pace. U.S. Highway 395 north of Spokane was reported to be very icy late this afternoon. One westbound lane of I-90 was closed about 4:20 p.m. because of an accident between Sullivan and Evergreen roads. Roads started out today with a coating of snow and ice from light precipitation starting before dawn. A fatal collision between a tanker truck and a passenger vehicle on U.S. Highway 395 south of Chewelah at 11:20 a.m. blocked the highway, forcing traffic to detour onto Jump Off Joe Road. The driver of the passenger vehicle was killed, authorities said. They had not given a cause for the accident through this afternoon. Elsewhere, an icy highway and speed were blamed for a 7:30 a.m. injury accident 23 miles south of Ritzville on U.S. 395, the State Patrol said. When troopers diverted traffic through the median to get around that accident, the driver of an International truck rolled his vehicle in the median. The driver and passenger were transported for medical care. Troopers said the trouble started when a Connell driver was going too fast for conditions and went off the roadway and rolled. The driver was taken to Spokane’s Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. The weather service has posted an ice storm warning for the east slopes of the Cascades, including the Interstate 90 corridor east of Ellensburg through 10 a.m. on Friday. A half-inch of ice could accumulate there. The warning extends to the north and south across the east Cascades slopes. The Washington state Department of Transportation reported that Snoqualmie Pass had areas of freezing rain and buffeting winds today. The trouble comes as dry cold weather gives way to milder Pacific moisture moving northward from a low pressure area off the Pacific coast. It’s the same parent low that brought torrential rains this week to Southern California. As the low moves northward, the Inland Northwest will be increasingly under its influence. The cold air should get scoured out over the next 24 hours, changing the freezing precipitation to rain in lowland areas. A subsequent pulse of precipitation is forecast for overnight Friday into Saturday, but it will come as rain to most lowland areas. Mountain areas should see mainly snow, which is good news to ski areas. However, the higher elevations near the Silver Valley and Lookout Pass could see the snow change to rain Friday before snow levels drop again on Saturday.