Storm packing snow, heavy wind blows into Washington
Sunday, December 21, 2008 10:11 AM PST
By Jim Cour
The Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleSEATTLE — A new wintry storm blustered into Washington state Saturday, moving steadily inland from the Pacific Ocean with snow and high winds expected to last into Sunday.
Snow first began falling on the coast, and reached the Seattle area by late in the afternoon.
As public officials and police agencies implored people to stay home and off roads, even the indoor holiday ice skating rink at Seattle Center bowed to the incoming storm. A sign said it closed at 5 p.m. “because of snow.”
“The storm has arrived,” said Johnny Burg, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle.
Winds gusting as high as 90 mph were forecast for communities in the Cascade Range foothills east and south of Seattle, including Enumclaw, North Bend and Maple Valley.
Steady wind of 40 mph with higher gusts was reported Saturday afternoon at Sekiu on the Olympic Peninsula.
The storm was forecast to bring 4-8 inches of new snow to the Seattle area, with higher amounts in other areas of Western Washington — especially around Hood Canal on the west side of Puget Sound, Burg said.
The snow was piling up on top of several inches that fell earlier in the week, and which never melted because of steady sub-freezing temperatures. Numerous accidents have been reported for days on the region’s icy roads, including one on Friday in which a charter bus slid down an icy hill and crashed through a barrier, slightly injuring several people and leaving the front of the bus dangling about 20 feet above Interstate 5 in Seattle.
Brad Colman, chief Weather Service meteorologist, told The Seattle Times the storm was “very dangerous” and a weather service overview about the storm Saturday said it “will be life threatening.”
In Spokane, meteorologist John Fox said the same storm would bring a moderate 3-6 inches of new snow to Eastern Washington on Saturday and Sunday. Spokane accumulated 25 inches of snow during the previous three days.
Most of Eastern Washington’s new snow wouldn’t fall on Spokane, but in the Palouse region of southeast Washington — in cities such as Clarkston and Pullman — and in southern portions of the Columbia Basin.
“We won’t get a lot of winds, though,” Fox said.
The Cascade and Olympic mountains were expected to get 1-2 feet of new snow, and blizzard warnings were posted there and along the western Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Judging from past wind storms, utility crews could expect outages over several days. Seattle City Light said it was fully prepared for the worst.
“We are concerned about the possibility of some high winds hitting our service area late this afternoon,” superintendent Jorge Carrasco said Saturday.
Meanwhile, Puget Sound Energy reported the week’s continued cold weather with below-freezing temperatures pushed PSE’s customer natural gas usage to a new record high Friday, surprassing the one set earlier this week.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport remained open as of Saturday evening, recording a low temperature of 14 degrees Saturday afternoon, tying the record low set in 1990.
Alaska Airlines said it had “preemptively” canceled 47 flights to and from Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia as a precaution because of the weather.
Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper said United Airlines also canceled some flights.
A college basketball game between eighth-ranked Gonzaga and No. 2 Connecticut was played as scheduled at Seattle’s KeyArena Saturday afternoon, but Seattle University postponed its men’s basketball game with Linfield College of McMinnville, Ore., Saturday night.
At Tacoma, the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium was closed on Saturday and its popular evening light display called Zoolights was canceled because of the weather.
In southwest Washington, the storm arrived shortly after noon, with Clark County Public Works reporting it was dealing with snow-covered roads throughout unincorporated areas. The department had a total of 60 workers and about 40 plow-equipped trucks working in two shifts.
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