The Snowmen Cometh (This Afternoon, We're Told)

Our Whidbey Island correspondent provides this winter wonderland view, confirming this Seattlepi.com story, "Whidbey Island faces snow days." Islanders are expecting between "1 and 3 inches of snow" to accumulate today, with perhaps another inch coming Thursday.

Here in Seattle, roadways are mostly bare and wet--after graupel yesterday and some wet snow for the commute home, we're in a snow shadow cast by the Olympics. In this morning's post, the UW's Cliff Mass suggests that while snow is on the way, at least today it won't be cold enough to freeze during the afternoon commute: 

The models indicate that during the day the flow approaching the region will weaken and turn more southerly....that will open Seattle to snow showers, and as the low moves south, northerly flow will push southward. But not yet. Last night the NWS was going for a hard freeze of this stuff later today during the commute home. Looking at the situation now I believe that is highly unlikely.

KOMO is doing a live snow blog, where they point out that the real action should be around Port Angeles and Sequim, with 6 to 12 inches of accumulation expected today. They're predicting localized snow showers to increase throughout the day, dropping 1 to 3 inches depending on location and elevation. And they caution that the arrival of the arctic air expected from Canada is not dialed in to the minute:

The big push of arctic air looks like it'll now work its way through Seattle in the evening or early night. There is a chance we could squeeze through the evening commute before the flash freeze we have concerns about but it'll be really close and we are not comfortable in saying it won't happen until after the commute.