Summer snow to fall as pattern shifts

Astronomical autumn kicks off this weekend, and the final days of summer could bring some snow to part of the West.

Transcript

00:00 It's time to talk about the S word.

00:04 I mean snow.

00:05 Seriously, folks, we've got a lot to talk about in the West this week.

00:09 It's all about the Cascades and the Northern Rockies, and we'll start with this.

00:14 The historical average date for the first snowfall of the year.

00:18 And in our Western mountain ranges, looking at the Cascade Mountains, the Sierra, the

00:21 Northern Rockies, we're really looking at a mid-October first snowfall.

00:26 Now I know it's mid-late September right now, but Mother Nature doesn't really care about

00:30 the calendar.

00:31 That's kind of the funny thing about the weather.

00:33 Now you'll notice into the Rockies of Colorado, we do have little traces of snow on the ground.

00:39 You can see that very light blue shading just north of cities like Durango and as you're

00:43 getting out toward Aspen as well.

00:45 But we're looking back to the PNW for the front that could bring a few extra snowflakes

00:49 to this part of the country.

00:51 And let me just get this out of the way.

00:52 I'm not talking about snow, let's say at 4,000, 3,000, 2,000 feet.

00:58 I'm talking way up, 7,000, 8,000 feet and higher.

01:01 That said, this front in the PNW is going to bring some rain across cities like Seattle

01:05 and even out toward, let's say, the Yakima Valley.

01:08 Not too much in the way of moisture here.

01:10 It's not a blockbuster of a storm or anything, but it is going to help usher in some colder

01:14 air as we move to the middle of this week.

01:17 And that's the biggest change here, is that burst of colder air out of the north and west

01:22 that's going to bring in that potential for a couple of snowflakes.

01:26 Again, looking at those higher elevations, 7,000, 8,000 feet and on higher.

01:30 Temperatures falling in a hurry.

01:31 And as you get the air coming up the mountain ranges, you can squeeze out the last of the

01:35 moisture as it gets quite cold.

01:37 And that could lead to a little bit of that fluffy white stuff.

01:40 Yeah, it's September, but here we are.

01:43 And even for the places that don't have any snow on the way, let's say like Helena, Montana,

01:48 we do have temperatures falling into the 50s on Thursday and Friday.

01:51 So again, you can see that colder air working its way across the west, even in the interior

01:55 west throughout the week.

01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]