Last year weather forecasters predicted that this would be a very strong La Nina year in Western Washington, bringing with it a colder, wetter and snowier winter.

Most of Winter 2010 in the Puget Sound area was rather unremarkable with the predicted weather extremes failing to materialize, that is until now. Forecasters had said they may have overestimated the effect La Nina would have on the area. But did they?

Now the snow and cold temperatures have arrived as a late February snowstorm slammed into the state leaving behind two feet of snow in some areas. Skagit and Whatcom Counties were the hardest hit areas.

Record low temperatures have been recorded throughout the area and what little snow melt did occur has refrozen the slush into hard, slippery ice which is making getting around difficult. Most major roads are in good shape but getting off the icier side streets where cars are buried in snow has been much harder.

And there could be more snow on the way. Some hard hit areas may pick up an additional 3 inches tonight and temperatures will not warm significantly until next week and even at best they will still be below normal. Currently light snow is falling in some areas already.

Western Washington is known for its erratic weather. Locals joke that if you don’t like the weather here you just wait ten minutes and it changes.

The state’s weather is often hard to predict because you have a predominantly warm moist pattern from the Pacific and Arctic cold from Alaska and Canada mixing with it. Then too there is the rain shadow caused by the Olympics which can greatly affect the amount of precipitation that falls and fluctuating freezing levels that affect the type of precipitation.

The results can be surprising and varied like the current snowstorm. Experts will have to decide if the current weather is related to La Nina or not. But even in a state with unusual weather this storm stands out as unusual. Normally one would see daffodils and not snow drifts at this time.

Image via Wikipedia