Wind, snow, hail and rain hit Washington 

08:41 PM PST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005

KING5.com

SEATTLE - Better late than never, as the saying goes.

A spring storm brought rain and snow to the Northwest, dumping more than a foot of snow in the Washington Cascades overnight Monday and Tuesday.

High winds, rain and snow pummeled Washington Tuesday, bringing new life to ski areas that had suffered a disappointing winter.

Much of the state was overcast and wet, and winds were gusting to more than 30 miles per hour in Bremerton, Hanford, Hoquiam, Moses Lake, Pasco, Pullman, Walla Walla and Wenatchee.

State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, remains closed because of snow slides over the road.

Traction tires are required on Snoqualmie Pass over Interstate 90, and on White Pass on U.S. 12.

High winds in the Tri-Cities area prompted state Transportation officials to ban the movement of mobile homes on Interstate 82 from Benton City to the Oregon state line.

Even the occasional lightning bolt swept through the lowlands of Western Washington and created a spectacle when lighting struck the Space Needle.

North Bend, Wash. got almost an inch of rain during the day Tuesday, 6/10-inch of rain fell in Tumwater, 1/2-inch in Snoqualmie and 4/10-inch in Issaquah.

Enough hail fell in Sammamish and Issaquah to cover streets and rooftops in whole neighborhoods with a thick coat of white, giving the area an appearance rare even in winter.

The snow, in the meantime, created headaches for motorists trying to cross Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass. An accident closed the eastbound lanes Tuesday evening.

“It looks like winter has arrived in the first weeks of spring,” said KING 5 meteorologist Rich Marriott.

Another 8 to 16 inches of snow is expected to fall in the Cascades Tuesday night before a warm front settles in for a dry Wednesday, said Marriott. But it won’t be long before the Cascades get another good dumping of snow.

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Enough hail fell in Issaquah Tuesday afternoon to make March look decidedly more like January.

“We’ll get another good round, about 6 to 12 inches of snow, Friday morning,” said Marriott.

Record-breaking rains – .57 inches to 3 inches - fell in Seattle and in areas around the Puget Sound over the weekend. The recent precipitation has brought Washington’s rainfall totals close to normal for the month of March, after being down by three inches a few weeks ago, said Marriott.

Ski areas opening again

So much snow has fallen in the past couple of days that several Washington ski resorts, such as Crystal Mountain and Snoqualmie Summit, are contemplating opening up their ski lifts for the weekend.

“We’ve had almost 2 feet of snow within the last couple of days,” said Judy Reddy, who works for the Washington Transportation Department at Snoqualmie Summit.

Crystal Mountain reports 5 feet of new snow in the past three days and will therefore operate lifts from April 2 to April 10.

Mount Baker Ski Area near Bellingham announced that it is in normal midweek operation, and this weekend would have all lifts running and an expected snow base of 100 inches.

Snow levels will rise to the 5,000-ft. level Thursday, but will drop to the 2,500-ft. level by early Friday, added Marriott. Conditions will be cool and showery over the weekend.

But even the recent snow boon makes up only a fraction of normal snowpack levels.

“This time of the year we’d normally have 93 inches on the ground at Snoqualmie, and we’re at 19 inches,” said Marriott. “So we’re at 20 percent of the average snowpack level.”

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Lightning struck the Space Needle as a storm swept through Western Washington Tuesday, bringing rain and hail to the lowlands and snow to the mountains.

The average snowpack level at Mount Baker Ski Resort is 165 inches this time of year; the current level registered just before the recent snowstorm was only 15 inches. The average at Crystal Mountain is 68 inches; pre-storm measurements were also 15 inches. And while the average at White Pass is 57 inches, the ski resort had zero inches for snowpack, which is why the recent snowstorm was a welcome sight for many.

“It all helps,” said Marriott. “But one storm does not make up for lack of storms during the winter.”

Because Western Washington gets its water from runoff from the melting snowpack during the summer, state and county officials are bracing for drought conditions later this year. King County Executive Ron Sims formally activated the county's drought response plan last week, and Governor Christine Gregoire introduced legislation that would replenish the state's drought account to implement drought programs.

Averting a drought in the Northwest this summer is “not totally out of the question,” said Marriott. He compared the dry winter of 2004-05 to the Northwest’s dry winter of 1976-77 – very similar conditions to our present situation, until February 15 when it "snowed like hell.”

“What we basically need to avert a drought is a cold wet, summer,” said Marriott.

KING 5's Chris Daniels, KING5.com's Liza Javier and the Associated Press contributed to this report.