Blizzard — Western Whatcom, Washington

1996-12-27 to 1996-12-28 · Western Whatcom, Washington

Wider weather episode

By 430 am friday morning Bellingham had gotten nearly 7 inches in the last 10 hrs, total snow depth downtown was almost 12 inches. By saturday night roughly 3 feet of snow had fallen and they had wind up to 50 mph with wind chills near 50 below. Whatcom county was declared a disaster area as there were drifts to 10 feet. Snow plows were getting stuck as there were no passable roads in the county. There were 100's of cars abandoned and they had to send out search and rescue crews to go after state patrol, some of the rescue crew couldn't get out of their own homes. Most of Bellingham's commerce was shut down, hotels were full, and businesses closed. The airport had no air traffic for 3 days and postal service was cancelled for a while.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5577220. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.