SPOKANE, Wash. — It's been a mild and fairly pleasant stretch of weather recently for the Inland Northwest, but this weekend will see rain and snow for the region.
At a glance, the incoming storm system will drop heavy mountain snow, with 8-12" possible for areas like Lookout Pass. But lower elevations, valleys and foothill will see far less snow as temperatures will still be well above freezing during the day.
As the Jet Stream moves into a trough position, a disturbance will move into the Pacific Northwest between Saturday and Sunday along with it. That disturbance will have a fair amount of moisture to utilize, but with temperatures so close to the freezing mark during the Saturday evening hours, it'll be a close call between rain and snow for most area cities.
Talking temperatures, Spokane's high on Saturday will be in the mid-40s. Sunday's high in the low-40s. That's easily warm enough for rainfall during the warmer parts of the day. But that night, with lows around 32 degrees, that'll likely be snow, or a wet-'n-slushy snowfall which doesn't appear to amount to very much in terms of accumulations.
The lastest forecast leans far more on the rain side of things as snow totals will likely be less than one inch for all area cities in eastern Washington. Only Sandpoint may get more than an inch. Wallace and Kellogg will likely lead the way with about 2-4 inches of snowfall.
Next week, temperatures take a severe dip with lows are forecast in the teens, with the closest areas being the ones that still have fresh snow on the ground.