Lowland Snow Increasingly Likely This Weekend: Seattle Area Forecast

SEATTLE — The odds are increasing for lowland snow accumulating across the greater Seattle area this weekend, and some winter weather could linger into early next week. While forecasters are not anticipating anything on the scale of what walloped Portland this week, there is a promising chance for most areas to pick up at least a couple of inches, according to the National Weather Service.

Here's what the National Weather Service forecasters said Thursday:

"Deterministic and ensemble members remain in lockstep with each other regarding the Saturday system, starting to nudge onto the coast mid to late Saturday afternoon but not becoming a widespread concern until Saturday evening. The timing of the entrance of this front, given that cold air will remain in place, looks to be conducive to another round of lowland snowfall. Projected amounts look to be a little higher than the previous round. That being said, it does spread this snowfall out over a 36 hour period, from the end of Saturday throughout the majority of the day Sunday...and with temps rising during the day Sunday to above freezing, this makes for a very complicated forecast as trying to pin down any specific amounts will be difficult due to the eventual transition to rain by Sunday afternoon."

The Seattle Weather Blog said Puget Sound could expect a moderate snowstorm kicking off late Saturday. Another weather system on its heels could bring a rain/snow mix Sunday evening into Monday morning.

While afternoon highs will begin to moderate over the weekend, they will still run chillier than normal, and overnight lows are forecast near the freezing mark through Tuesday.

With March — and meteorological spring — arriving Wednesday, the latest climate outlooks strongly favor colder-than-average temperatures sticking around through at least the first week of next month, with a slight signal in favor of wetter weather.