The second storm is expected to arrive from Friday night until Saturday and bring a possible total record of snow and ice conditions. Portland and Seattle could see more than a year of snow before Valentine’s Day.
These cities experienced the first round of the storm from Thursday to Friday morning, with Portland receiving 1 inch of snow.
A year of snow in a single day for Seattle?
The highly successful snow event will arrive on Friday through Saturday, moving closer to Washington state and setting the stage for a more generalized blizzard.
“We are still on track for a major snowstorm across the region tonight on Saturday,” said the National Weather Service office in Seattle.
That’s when the combination of the storm track, humidity and cold air can work together to produce up to 6 inches on the Seattle subway and an additional 4 inches on the Portland subway, which is the average for these cities in a year. This came in the wake of the 1-inch snowfall that Portland received on Thursday.
The storm is forecast to produce real snow during the night shift in Seattle.
For some historical context, Seattle would need a little more than 7 inches of snow on Friday to put it among the 10 snowiest days on record.
The city most recently recorded 6.4 inches of snow on February 8, 2019, but even these types of snow days are few and far between for Seattle.
Cold conditions will also be a problem. An ice storm alert is in place in parts of western Oregon, making travel nearly impossible.
“Although a mixture of snow and hail can reach 2.5 cm or more in some places, expect predominantly freezing rain,” says NWS Portland. Likely accumulations of additional ice from one quarter to three quarters of an inch are likely.
This is more than enough to weigh power lines and trees to the point of breaking, leading to possible power outages.
These totals are exceeded by the totals predicted at the highest elevations of the Cascades in Washington and northern Oregon.
The forecast is that the snow accumulates up to 60 to 90 centimeters until Valentine’s Day, making the trip complicated for those who intend to drive through the passages in the mountains of the region.
Although penetrating gusts are expected at these higher altitudes, cities like Portland and Seattle will be hit by gusts of 25 to 40 mph as these storms pass, bringing chills in the respective cities sometimes even teenagers.
In cities like Multnomah Falls, Oregon, on the Columbia River Gorge, people who venture outside will be greeted by bursts of 40 to 60 mph and blinding snow at the height of storms.
The evolution of this second storm determines the amount of cold air that will last until the arrival of the third and last storm of this winter pattern.
A third chance for snow on Valentine’s Day
The final act of the three storms is scheduled to take place from late Sunday to Monday.
While the forecast is that unusual cold air will remain on Valentine’s Day, it is not known exactly how cold the air mass will be and whether it could be enough to withstand low-lying snow in Portland and Seattle.
At this point, the models suggest at least a mixture of rain and snow, as the triad of winter storms comes to an end.
“Although many thought that winter may have failed us, it looks like it was just taking a little break,” says NWS Portland.
CNN meteorologists Monica Garrett and Michael Guy contributed to this report.