Pacific Northwest of US hit by deadly ice storm

The governor of Washington declared a state of emergency because of the storm, which caused two deaths, one of which was a 20-month-old boy in Albany, Orgeon. A 60-year-old man was also killed when a tree fell on his car near Issaquah, a Seattle suburb.

Seattle was badly hit just a day after Tacoma airport had 7.5 inches of snow in just 30 hours – an amount of snow that would normally be expected in a whole winter season.

The city’s schools and airport were closed and there were numerous car crashes. On Interstate 90, eighty miles from Seattle, six trucks were involved in a collision that blocked Washington State’s main route through the Cascade Mountains.

Ice coated power lines causing them to collapse, leaving around 150,000 homes without power – 90,000 of those Seattle itself. Puget Sound Energy warned that some households may remain without power until Saturday.

This bout of cold, icy weather has been caused by a combination of frigid Arctic air digging down from Canada meeting moisture laden low pressure systems moving in from the Pacific Ocean.

Normally, Seattle’s close proximity to the relative warmth of the Pacific Ocean means that rain is more likely to fall than snow. However on this occasion, the coldness of the Arctic air was sufficient enough to give some parts of the Pacific Northwest wintry weather of an intensity that isn’t experienced very often.

The stormy weather is likely to continue for the west coast of the US into next week, as a strong jet stream brings further deeps areas of low pressure.

Snow is more likely to be confined to higher elevations over the next five days, with heavy rain at lower levels.

Whilst the snow and ice hazard may diminish, the next concern will be flooding as snow melt combined with heavy rain potentially overwhelms rivers.