Snowfall amounts Sunday into Monday varied widely across Grays Harbor County, but enough fell just about everywhere to delay or cancel schools and make for a sloppy commute Monday morning.
After snow fell steadily from about 11 a.m. Sunday, another line of wet snow moved through mid-Monday morning, bringing with it about an inch more of the slushy stuff as temperatures hovered around 34 degrees at Bowerman Airport in Hoquiam. East of Aberdeen, however, temperatures were lower and reports of heavy snow continued from Central Park east toward noon Monday.
“It shouldn’t cause many problems until (Monday) evening when it freezes,” said Mike McFarland at the National Weather Service Seattle office about the chance of more snow in the Hoquiam area. “We should get down below freezing (Monday night), but the snow showers will fizzle out later (Monday) evening to just a few flurries.”
According to the Weather Service, a chance of snow does remain through Wednesday, with little to no accumulations expected in most areas. “Then it gets dramatically warmer Thursday and Friday,” said McFarlan, with temperatures nearing 50 and lows above freezing. With those warming temperatures comes another wet weather system, which could bring very heavy rain to the region. By the weekend, however, skies are expected to clear and temperatures should be in the high 40s to near 50 with nighttime lows in the mid-30s.
Snow totals between midday Sunday and Monday morning varied from just flurries in Ocean Shores to nearly four inches recorded in Montesano. McFarland said a report came in from Long Beach saying there was an inch of snow Monday morning. Aberdeen totaled about two inches early Monday, as did McCleary, according to the CoCoRaHS (pronounced KO-ko-rozz) website. They are a group of volunteer weather observers across the country, Canada and beyond that provide accurate weather measurements. Locally, particularly in the higher elevations east of Aberdeen, accumulations were higher.
As for schools, Aberdeen and Hoquiam school districts were two hours late, while the North Beach School District was on time. Raymond, McCleary, Elma and Montesano schools were canceled, as were classes and evening activities at Grays Harbor College. The Lake Quinault School District will open two hours late Tuesday.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, there were plenty of accidents overnight, mostly on Highway 12 from Montesano east, but it appears most were minor non-injury incidents involving single vehicles leaving the roadway.
