Winter Weather in Northeast Mountains, Washington

Bus carrying school children slid of the road and flipped on its side in Springdale. The accident occurred on Cementery Road near Highway 231. There were twenty-seven children on board the bus and eight of the children were transported to the hospital with injuries.

The region was under a transitioning weather regime through the first week of March. March 1st came in dry and very cold under a modified Arctic air mass. This kept soil temperatures below freezing across much of the northeast portion of Washington. March 2nd into the 3rd brought heavy snow across these same areas as dry northerly flow was replaced by milder and wetter southerly flow. This wetter and milder flow regime continued into March 5th, but with snow levels lifting above valleys floors. A pair of Pacific storm systems bringing through more sub-tropical moisture into the region resulted in moderate to heavy rainfall in the valleys. The first weather system during the early morning hours on March 5th resulted in a short duration mixed precipitation event for portions of the Northeast Mountains. This lead to pockets of icy roads early in the morning before temperatures warmed up late in the morning and in the afternoon. The main impact over this wet period was flooding over the Palouse, upper potions of the Columbia Basin and in the Spokane Area. Flooding was exasperated by low elevation snow melt and frozen soils.