Weather Eye: Most of the arctic air will stay north of us, for now

Had enough of the cold weather? Then you will like the forecast coming your way.

After that small burst of modified arctic air that arrived with the flurries Tuesday night, we have one more weather system sliding down the British Columbia coast, beginning as snow early today and becoming light rain showers later today.

That is how things looked as I wrote this column Wednesday. Sometimes it takes longer to warm up than forecast models indicate; however, we never really got all that cold, with the bulk of the arctic air mass bottled up to our north. There was plenty of cold air to our east, but those easterly winds remained at bay for the most part.

While we had an overcast Wednesday morning with flurries, it was clear and sunny along the coast. The sun there was deceiving, however, as a cold north wind was blowing and temperatures were at or below freezing. Snow still covered much of the beaches.

After the front passes today, it will turn a bit cooler tonight with freezing temperatures. Early Friday, we could see a few flurries again. We’ll finally switch back to our usual weather Sunday as a “warmer” storm arrives, bringing plain old rain to the lowlands and more snow to the mountains.

Wow, what a snowpack we have now. Good water supply in the bank, folks.

As is usually the case when we get a cold wave, it is relatively warm in Alaska. Fairbanks early Wednesday was 33 degrees, with light snow. Here in Vancouver, it was 28 degrees.

But next week, Fairbanks will be close to minus 30 degrees. We will be in the 40s.

The first week of January looks cool, with several bouts of valley rain and mountain snow. No arctic outbreaks are foreseen yet, but we’ll keep an eye on all that frigid air that remains in British Columbia.

On Wednesday, snow depths varied from an inch or 2 in the lowlands of Clark County to 8 to 15 inches in our foothills above 1,000 feet. We’ll see what happens with our early-morning system and how that south wind affects us.

Keep safe and warm.

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