Seattle snow ranges from dusting to dumped on

John Brecher / msnbc.com

Two stitched composite images of downtown Seattle as seen from the Jose Rizal Bridge show the weather on Wednesday, bottom, and Tuesday.

By Msnbc.com staff and wire

SEATTLE -- A major winter snowstorm dumped up to 10 inches of snow overnight in some low-lying areas of the Pacific Northwest, and more than a foot in the mountains. Seattle?saw just a dusting by early morning,?but forecasters warned up to 8 inches could still fall Wednesday on the city accustomed more to rain than snow.

The National Weather Service's Wednesday morning update forecast 4-8 inches of snow for the Seattle area?through Wednesday evening.

NBC meteorologist Bill Karins noted that the expected totals had changed overnight, with the heaviest amounts of snow now expected to stay south of the Seattle area.

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Karins described the forecast as?"significant" but not of "epic" or "historical" proportions. Still, with an annual average snowfall of under 6 inches, Seattle could see in one day as much snow?as it sees in a typical year. On top of that,?parts of the region saw several inches of snow last weekend and a bit more on Tuesday.

One of the worst snowstorms in years is hitting the Pacific Northwest, closing schools and roads and cancelling flights. The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore reports from Seattle.

The National Weather Service overnight said that it had kept "all warnings and advisories in place" but had lowered its snow totals "especially over the Seattle metro area."

"Latest model runs have shifted the track of the low (pressure area) south a bit ... with major implications for snowfall amounts over western Washington," the weather service said.

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John Brecher / msnbc.com

This street in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood is seen Wednesday morning, bottom, and a day earlier.

Snow began falling in Washington?s capital, Olympia, around midnight. By early morning, the area south of Seattle had 10 inches of snow.

There were 95 accidents in an eight-hour period in Pierce and Thurston counties, which include Tacoma and Olympia, State Trooper Guy Gill said Wednesday morning. Most were spinouts.

"You need to pick a rut and stay in it. If you get off the beaten path, you're in deep trouble," Gill said. "I saw a guy in my rear mirror ? I saw headlights and tail lights and headlights and tail lights again as he spun around off the road."

"For the first time in my career I had to put chains on," Gill said. "You stay in the path laid down on the freeway. You get off that, you are in trouble."

Olympia?could break its record of 14 inches of snow in a 24-hour period, said Brad Colman, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Seattle. Areas south of Olympia could get 20 inches.

"They're getting hammered," Colman said.

TODAY show weather anchor Al Roker noted that the storm covers an area from central California to as far east as Montana. Along Oregon's coast, he added, some areas could see 85 mph hurricane-force winds.

Some 30,000 homes and buildings were without power in Portland on Wednesday morning as trees made heavy by ice downed power lines.

Schools?pre-emptively closed in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Bellingham, while crews salted down streets and dozens of flights were canceled as the region prepared for the storm.

Alaska Airlines announced late Tuesday that it canceled 38 flights into and out of Seattle and Portland. The airline was waiving re-booking fees for passengers traveling Tuesday through Thursday in those cities.

Conditions on the roads were expected to be dangerous as the morning rush hour approached.

"Wednesday is going to be a good day to stay at home," said Brad Colman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle. "The road is going to be treacherous."

Several inches of snow have the potential to paralyze the city of Seattle, which owns relatively few snowplows. Its drivers are mostly inexperienced with driving in snow or ice.

Several downtown hotels reported all their rooms were booked. Elsewhere, shoppers stocked up on groceries.

The Cascade Mountains could see 1 to 3 feet of new snow through late Wednesday, and officials warned of high avalanche danger there. Some computer models showed the Cascades potentially receiving up to 4 feet of snow, reported KING5.com on Wednesday morning.

Pickup with snow plow stolen
In Everett, north of Seattle, police reported a thief broke into an Everett School District parking lot early Tuesday and drove off in an old pickup equipped with a snow plow. The faded yellow truck had the snow plow in front and a full hopper of sand in the back, Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

Bec Thomas, who lives on Camano Island north of Seattle, stocked up on bottled water and food. As her children built snowmen, made snow angels and sledded in nearly a foot of fresh snow on Tuesday, she made food that could be reheated on her wood stove.

The last snowstorm knocked out her power for a week.

"We take it very seriously," said Thomas, a fine arts photographer. "We'll probably be snowed in until Thursday."

In eastern Washington, forecasters predicted that about 6 inches of snow could fall on Spokane by late Wednesday with several more inches falling Thursday. The Pullman area could see as much as 12 inches of new snow by Wednesday night.

The Seattle Times initially described the coming bad weather as a "megastorm" in its print edition Tuesday, but then revised it to "Less snow in the forecast? It's 'evolving'" on its website later in the day.

Not everyone was pleased with the city?s response to the forecast, The Seattle Times reported. On Tuesday, Seattle resident Nikki Dettmar walked her fourth-grade son to his bus stop at about 11 a.m. before heading to her job, only to receive a call shortly afterwards that she needed to pick him up.

"My son was at school for 45 minutes," Dettmar said Broadview-Thompson K-8 in northwest Seattle, which started two hours late and ended two hours early. "All the kids had time to do today, pretty much, was eat lunch and then they had to go home."

Tuesday?s clear skies over most of the city compounded her frustration, but public school officials said the forecast made it imperative to get all kids home as soon as possible before roads became slick.

"Predicting winter weather in Seattle is a challenge," Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield said in a news release. "Safety for students and staff always comes first."

The Associated Press and NBC affiliate KING 5 in Seattle?contributed to this report.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/18/10180456-northwest-storm-likely-major-but-not-epic

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