Which ‘Snow Zone’ Are You In Tonight?

The late February snow machine is about to kick into high gear over the I-5 corridor again.

Are you ready?

The National Weather Service put together this map which captures the big picture of what to expect by late evening. It will be the result of what appears to be a few hours of solid snow.

Here’s what it shows and what it doesn’t:

• It’s a nice overview of snow totals that will be typical for different sections of Western Oregon and Washington
• What it cannot show are the areas where bursts of heavy snow will pump up snow totals to more significant numbers

Have you ever seen the weather map on TV showing rain totals? You barely care when Portland got .25″ of rain and Beaverton got .50″ of rain. It’s all wet, right?

But in our setup for the evening of February 20, 2018, a difference like that would leave Portland with 2 1/2″ of snow and Beaverton with 5″ of snow. Now that difference is significant! (This is not my forecast, just an example…)

What else happens when the snow comes down fast

As snow increases, some of the snowflakes get sucked up by the air-evaporated-and that helps drop the temperature. So while most of us saw temps in the mid-30s during the day with our light snow, tonight the moderate snow should push temperatures below freezing. 

Then, all of a sudden, you have the heaviest snowfall of the day and the coolest temperatures of the day. The end result is accumulation.

The Sussman family is all set to hunker down and hopefully do some late night sledding.

And we have all the necessities: salmon for dinner, Chips Ahoy for dessert and plenty of milk for morning cereal. And this time it is ‘name brand’ milk in the fridge since the store brand was sold out.

Have a safe evening and hopefully you can be at home as we have another very rare late February snow storm on the valley floor and along parts of the coast down to sea level!