The second storm is expected to arrive from Friday evening through Saturday, bringing possibly record-breaking snowfall and icy conditions. Portland and Seattle could see more than a year of snow before Valentine’s Day.
Those cities experienced the first round of the storm from Thursday through Friday morning, with Portland getting 1 inch of snow.
A year with snow in one day for Seattle?
The blockbuster snow event arrives late Friday to Saturday, tracking closer to Washington state and paving the way for heavier, widespread snowfall.
“We are still on track for a major snowstorm in the region tonight to Saturday,” said the National Weather Service office in Seattle.
This is when the combination of the storm track, moisture, and cold air can work together to produce a whopping 6 inches on the Seattle subway and another 4 inches on the Portland subway, which is roughly what those cities average in a year. This comes on the heels of the 1 inch of snowfall Portland received on Thursday.
The storm is expected to produce serious snow around the time of Seattle commuting.
For a historical context, Seattle would need a little over 7 inches of snow on Friday to place it in the top 10 snowiest days ever.
The city last had 6.4 inches of snow on February 8, 2019, but even those kinds of snowy days are rare for Seattle.
Icy conditions will also be a problem. An ice storm warning is in effect for parts of western Oregon, making travel nearly impossible.
“While a mixture of snow and sleet can reach an inch or so in some places, you can expect mostly freezing rain,” says NWS Portland. Additional one-quarter to three-quarter-inch ice buildups are likely.
This is more than enough to weigh down power lines and trees to the point where they break, leading to potential power outages.
These totals are insignificant compared to the predicted totals at the higher elevations of the Cascades in Washington and northern Oregon.
It is predicted that by Valentine’s Day there will be as much as 2-1 meters of snow, making for tricky travel conditions for anyone planning to cross the region’s mountain passes.
While penetrating gusts of wind are to be expected at these higher elevations, cities such as Portland and Seattle will be fueled with gusts of 25 to 40 mph as these storms pass, causing the chills in the respective cities occasionally into the teens. come.
In cities like Multnomah Falls, Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge, people venturing outside are greeted by gusts of 40 to 100 mph and blinding snow from the height of the storms.
The evolution of this second storm determines how much cold air will linger before the arrival of the third and final storm of this winter pattern.
A third chance of snow on Valentine’s Day
The final act of the three storms is expected to be served late Sunday to Monday.
While unusually cold air is expected to linger into Valentine’s Day, it is not known how cold the air mass will be and whether it could be enough to support low-lying snow for Portland and Seattle.
At this point, the models at least suggest a mix of rain and snow as the trifecta of winter storms come to an end.
“While many thought that winter might have missed us, it looks like it was a hiatus,” said NWS Portland.
CNN meteorologists Monica Garrett and Michael Guy contributed to this report.