So is there any chance of snow n the Seattle area (Everett: home, college)

[Gaylord_Focker]

I mean, can you count on snow at least a couple times a year?

[sean98125]

You can't really count on it, but it generally snows in Seattle once or twice. We didn't get any last year. Due to the mountains, the ocean, the Fraser outflow and a dozen other factors this can vary widely. There is a convergence zone that usually sets up around Everett give or take 20 miles north or south that can dump inches of snow while areas just south or north don't get much at all. Hood Canal generally sees more snow than Puget Sound. And you'll have more snow in Issaquah than you do in Ballard.

[BATCAT]

What he said. Some years there's none. Some years a dusting a time or two... and some years we get a lot, relatively speaking. It usually doesn't last very long.

You don't have to go far to get more, though.

[jm31828]

Just as the others have said, it's really hit or miss. I have lived here for 4 winters now- and so far two of them had nothing more than a very light dusting of snow for a brief period of a few hours (maybe a quarter of an inch at the most) and the other two had a couple of decent snowfalls each.
I live in that convergence zone that someone else mentioned- in Lynnwood- just about 16 miles north of Seattle, but I work in north Seattle. There was one day that year when a band of snow set up in a convergence zone over my area- it was sunny in north Seattle when I left work and the little inch or so of snow we had received that day was melting. However there was a dark cloud over my area up north and as I got up to that area it was a different world- very dark and snowing very heavily. I think that day we had received 6 or more inches of snow. A narrow band set up in that area as it sometimes does and just sat there dropping snow most of the day while areas to the north and to the south didn't have much at all. It was the craziest thing! That week we actually had several other systems move through dropping snow before it ever warmed up enough to melt any of the snow, so by the end of that week I literally had 12 inches of snow in my yard, and big piles probably 3 feet high on either side of my driveway from shoveling. It really reminded me of how things looked regularly back home in the Midwest!

So it's weird in a way that you really don't know what to count on- you could very well never see any white all winter or else you could end up one or two times a year like I did that year feeling like you are living back in the upper Midwest digging out after one of their many large storms.

[spotlesseden]

i saw snow in Redmond area last year.

[poopskooper]

Just to add, the winters seem to be getting milder and milder through the decades. Whether it is global warming or not, who knows?

When I was a kid, we had snow storms that dumped two or three feet of snow and sat on the ground for over a week. I remember several instances of Green Lake freezing over. When was the last time that happened? Maybe in 1972? I made a quick trip home from college that year and remember that Green lake was completely frozen over.

I think it was in the late 50s when I remember my parents walking us down to Green Lake and it seemed as it was frozen all the way across. We lived fairly close to Green Lake at the time. eta: I just looked it up and it was 1957; here's a photo from the PI archives >>click here

I remember my father relating stories of huge snow storms that happened when he was growing up in Seattle back in the 30s and 40s. The one I remember him harping on was the storm of 1950 where he claimed it was an actual blizzard with high winds and heavy blowing snow as he told me that it was the biggest snowstorm he had seen in Seattle with snow drifts of 10 feet and three feet of snow on the ground in places. That's a rarity in western Washington.

The one I remember is the winter of 1968-69 where it felt like Minnesota. It seemed like snow was on the ground all winter as there was a succession of storms from November through February. I never have seen a winter like that since.

Another storm that sticks in my mind is the one that occurred just before Thanksgiving 1985. It started snowing a week before thanksgiving and dumped a huge amount of snow. Then it cleared up and was bitter cold for about a week and then the day before Thanksgiving, it snowed heavily again and cleared up and got bitter cold once more. The accumulation of those two storms stayed on the ground for almost two weeks before it warmed up and rain washed everything away.

There have been several relatively heavy snows and ice storms in recent years but most of them seemed to have been short lived.

Like I say, global warming? Who knows.

[spotlesseden]

global warming = hotter in summer, colder in winner.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by spotlesseden

global warming = hotter in summer, colder in winner.

You mean winter and this is not necessarily true but that's a different discussion.

West coast winters are getting milder most definitely.

[poopskooper]

Originally Posted by spotlesseden

global warming = hotter in summer, colder in winner.

Ah, okay. So that doesn't explain it.

It just is probably the cycles in weather patterns then ...or the accentuated El Niño- La Niña effect?

I'm not an expert on this but I know there are some participants on this forum who are.

[Ruth4Truth]

It snows pretty much once/year. Sometimes in late November, sometimes not til February. When it does, unless it's just a light dusting, all hell breaks loose traffic-wise. The articulated buses jackknife, car accidents happen, the city owns no snowplows, because snow is rare. And drivers aren't used to it. One year there was a particularly heavy snow, and bus service stopped altogether in the north part of town. I had to walk home to the Northgate area from the UW in deep snow. It took me a couple of hours, maybe more. Students were skiing to classes at the UW. The Russians in town broke out their fur coats. People were getting jiggy with it.