Freezing rain stops traffic, school Warmer temperatures on the way by the weekend
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Freezing rain and snow left their traces on a pine tree on Balsam Street.
MOSES LAKE — Hey, Mother Nature.
Come on, lady, knock it off.
Snow, freezing rain and another frosting of ice. Really, lady? Really?
Wednesday’s snow and Wednesday night’s freezing rain closed schools – again – and caused accidents – yet more accidents – all around the region. It turned out to be a bad idea to clear the snow from the sidewalk Wednesday afternoon – the freezing rain turned those nice clean sidewalks into skating rinks.
The guy who delivered ice melt to the Bank of America branch on Third Avenue was not giving in to this winter stuff. He got the bag out of his trunk and carried it into the bank, dressed in shorts and sneakers. With no socks.
There might be a crumb of comfort in the fact it could’ve been worse. “We had some pretty decent ice accumulation around here,” said Steven Van Horn, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Spokane. (In this case “decent” meant up to a half-inch of ice in places like Deer Park.)
The good news is there really is a sunny day in the forecast, and as many as four days in a row with no precipitation – some fog maybe, but no rain. Or snow, or freezing rain.
“By the weekend, we (NWS) have high confidence that you will be dry,” Van Horn said.
The forecast calls for a sunny day, an actual sunny day, Saturday, with partly cloudy and, alas, fog in some places Sunday through Tuesday. Once the fog goes away the forecast ranges from partly sunny to mostly sunny.
Long-range forecasting is a little trickier. The 30-day outlook does call for a good chance of above-normal precipitation in eastern Washington.
And drippy skies are forecast to return in the six- to 10-day outlook, possibly as early as Wednesday. The good news is it’s going to warm up, at least a little. It’s not like it’s breaking 40 or anything like that – more like a return to cold weather that’s closer to average, Van Horn said. It will be warm enough that any precipitation “should all be rain,’ he added.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.