Saturday is shaping up to be a beautiful day in the Olympics and Cascades. Temperature inversions in the mountain passes and valleys this morning should quickly yield to warm spring-like weather at all elevations. Today will be the warmest day of this stretch of clear weather. You may see a few periods of high thin clouds passing overhead especially in the afternoon hours. Expect mostly sunny skies, light winds, and warm temperatures for most areas today. Breezier conditions and slightly more cloudy cover may impact the Olympics and Mt Baker regions.
An approaching trough will begin to spread clouds across the pacific northwest overnight. This should help keep temperatures mild and limit inversions. Winds ahead of an approaching front will increase, with the strongest winds hitting the Olympics, northwest Cascades, and Mt Hood areas.
On Sunday, look for clouds to thicken and lower throughout the day as a slow-moving front makes its way inland. The front should arrive at the coast in the morning and bring a chance of showers to the Olympics during the day. A narrow band of light to moderate precipitation will reach the Cascades late in the afternoon. With mild temperatures already in place, this should initially result in very light rain for the west slopes of the Cascades and Passes. However, much colder air moving in behind the front should very quickly return snow to most trailhead locations as we move into Sunday evening.
Weather Forecast
Olympics
West North
West Central
West South
Stevens Pass
Snoqualmie Pass
East North
East Central
East South
Mt. Hood
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Saturday
Mostly sunny. High clouds increasing in the afternoon.
Saturday
Night
Cloudy. Moderate to strong SSW winds increasing overnight.
Saturday
Mostly sunny with periods of high thin clouds. Moderate to strong S winds increasing during the day.
Saturday
Night
Mostly cloudy. Strong S winds.
Saturday
Mostly sunny with periods of high thin clouds particularly in the afternoon.
The NWAC program is administered by the USDA-Forest Service and operates from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Seattle. NWAC services are made possible by important collaboration and support from a wide variety of federal, state and private cooperators.
The 5000’ temperature forecast does not imply a trend over the 12 hr period and only represents the max and min temperatures within a 12 hr period in the zone. The 6-hr snow level forecast, the forecast discussion, and weather forecast sections may add detail regarding temperature trends.
The snow level forecast represents the general snow level over a 6 hr time period. Freezing levels are forecast when precipitation is not expected.
*Easterly or offshore flow is highlighted with an asterisk when we expect relatively cool east winds in the major Cascade Passes. Easterly flow will often lead to temperature inversions and is a key variable for forecasting precipitation type in the Cascade Passes. Strong easterly flow events can affect terrain on a more regional scale.
Ridgeline winds are the average wind speed and direction over a 6 hr time period.
The wind forecast represents an elevation range instead of a single elevation slice. The elevation range overlaps with the near and above treeline elevation bands in the avalanche forecast and differs per zone.
Wind direction indicates the direction the wind originates or comes from on the 16-point compass rose.
Water Equivalent (WE) is the liquid water equivalent of all precipitation types; rain, snow, ice pellets, etc., forecast to the hundredth of an inch at specific locations. To use WE as a proxy for snowfall amounts, start with a snow to water ratio of 10:1 (10 inches of snow = 1 inch WE). Temperatures at or near freezing will generally have a lower ratio (heavy wet snow) and very cold temperatures can have a much higher ratio (dry fluffy snow).