Not much has changed in the last 24 hours. It looks we're going to get a good winter storm starting Friday. Thursday will be a fairly quiet day. Clouds in the morning. Sunbreaks by the afternoon and a high near 50 degrees.

The rug gets pulled out from under us Friday. Rain and very windy conditions will hit the coast in the morning. A high wind watch will go up on the coast 24 hours before the storm arrives.

Behind the storm front on Saturday, a mix of rain and snow will be possible on the beaches. In the Coast Range up to a foot of snow can be expected.

Locally rain arrives Friday morning. It will be a gray and wet day. I don't see the snow levels falling until late in the evening.

I've refined my forecast for Saturday. I think there will be at least a couple of inches of sticking snow 500 to 1000 feet. Preciptiation will be showery Saturday some locations may see a little more snow some a little less. On the valley floor maybe an inch of wet snow will accumulate. I really think it will be more of a rain & snow mixture. The heavier showers will pull cold air down for showers with more snow than rain in them.

Then there's the Cascades.

Skiers and boarders have gotta love that forecast. The only problem will be getting up to the mountain!

Long term I don't see us getting out the arctic air anytime soon. Another shot of bitterly cold air arrives from Canada Sunday. The second blast of arctic air will be dry so snow will be pretty much out of the picture.

As you can see from the 7 day forecast overnight lows are going to plunge. Sunday and Monday we'll likely see new record lows. The current record for both days is 23 degrees set back in 1972. Tuesday will be back down into the teens at night but we don't get close to the current record low. It's a bone numbing 6 degrees set back in 1964.

Dave

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