Heavy Snow — Idaho Palouse, Idaho

2019-02-08 · Idaho Palouse, Idaho

Event narrative

A member of the public in St. Maries reported 6.0 inches of new snow accumulation.

Wider weather episode

The first winter storm in what would become a repeating pattern of winter storms during the second week of February developed as an arctic cold front descended out of British Columbia and undercut a mid level warm front appending off of a surface low pressure near the Washington coast. The interaction of these air masses produced moderate to locally heavy snow accumulations in the Idaho Panhandle during the day and evening of February 8th.

During and after the snow fall period the arctic intrusion produced strong gusty northerly and northeasterly winds down the Purcell Trench of north Idaho from Bonners Ferry to Coeur D'Alene producing local blizzard conditions in blowing and drifting snow with scattered power outages and fallen trees during the day and into the evening of February 9th.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 805311. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.