Snow clouds leading in the cold front

Snow clouds by Gordon Snyder

Tonight I drove from Kirkland to Shoreline just a short time after Gordon Snyder took this photo from Horizon View in Lake Forest Park.

As I left Kirkland, tiny pellets of ice started to come down - graupel - bouncing off the pavement and rolling around. 10 blocks later, it was a fine mist of rain. A few blocks after that it appeared to be a rain-snow mix.

Another mile and just into Kenmore, there was no precipitation and the pavement was dry. In central Kenmore it started up again and it kept changing as we drove into Lake Forest Park and on to Shoreline.

Every ten blocks it would change.

The sky was beautiful - slightly darker than Gordon's photo. A huge black cloud that looked like something from a horror movie. Then blue sky. Then a cloud like the one in the middle but with cut-outs as if some giant was dipping spoonfuls of cloud for a snack.

The whole sky was like that .At one point there was a slightly wispy cloud skittering along below the thick ponderous clouds above it.

It's one thing to sit in the house and listen to my trees throwing things at my roof but it's a real treat to be outside and actually watching the weather that Carl Dinse talks about in his reports.

A few hours later my deck was white - but nothing measurable. Carl says the arctic front is officially here and there's more to come.

 

--Diane Hettrick