It's Snowing!

I have to admit, I am still a kid at heart when it comes to snow.
Well, snow is now reaching the ground around Puget Sound.

The National Weather Service has an app that allows folks to report their weather conditions (MPING) and latest download shows a number of folks reporting snow:

And snowflakes are being reported at a number of airport locations around the area.

A Pacific weather system reached our region this morning and at first the snow was aloft and then subsequently extended to the surface, with sublimation/evaporation of the snow causing sufficient cooling to allow snow to reach the surface in places.  Near the warm water and close to sea level, only light rain is being observed.

The surfacing of the snow was really dramatic from the Seattle Space Needle PanoCam....let me show you.  The first image is at 7:55 AM, the last one is 10:30 AM





In the first images, did you notice that the cloud bases are fuzzy and indistinct? When you see that, you know there is precipitation coming out of the cloud...in this case snow.

And when the evaporating snow fell into the dry air below, it increased the humidity and cooled the air by sublimation (like evaporation).  That was evident from the weather observations from the top of my building at the UW (see below, click to expand). Relative humidity (fourth panel down) has gone up the last hour or so, as has dew point (a measure of moisture in the air--third panel, red line). Temperatures has gone down.

And here is a video of the snow from the home of Dr. Peter Benda, high in the hills of Bellevue:


Enjoy the snow...it won't last more than a few hours.  I am going out to find a hot chocolate.

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