West Seattle Weather Watch: Monday afternoon updates

(new info and photos added below as the afternoon goes on)

Hailing now – the ground is covered. The weather folks say the next round of nasty weather is moving southward toward us – and it’s been seriously wintry up north, as evidenced by this photo Scott C just sent from his workplace in Everett:

1:08 PM: Hailstorm’s over. For now. As noted in a comment on our morning weather post, the afternoon is expected to be unpredictable too; the assessment from Cliff Mass — “If it is going to snow significantly in Seattle … it will be later this afternoon …” Also just in – thanks to Sharonn Meeks for an amazing photographic look from downtown as the storm moved in:

And here’s a few seconds of video from when the hail was falling here:

1:41 PM: Snowing now. Wish we had a time-lapse camera just rolling on the whole day.

2:26 PM: Traffic alert that may or may not be weather related – Sylvan Way through High Point is currently closed at SW Holly, near Forest Lawn (map) – we haven’t heard back from police yet but a nice person at FL tells us it appears to be some kind of accident; nothing on 911 log so we can only hope that means no medics because no injuries.

3:01 PM UPDATE: Police say it’s a jackknifed semi. We’re headed over to check the status of the scene. Meantime, OUTSIDE West Seattle but possibly affecting your commute, Metro is starting to report some bus trouble on the Eastside as well as “hilly areas” in Rainier Beach; here’s the “adverse weather” page.

3:16 PM UPDATE: The truck (photo above) has been pulled off to the side of the road – traffic’s been getting around, albeit slowly. One more update to share: Elementary and middle-school afterschool activities have been canceled for this afternoon/tonight throughout Seattle Public Schools (per schoolreport.org).

4 PM NOTE: Just mentioned this in comments – our Traffic page doesn’t just have the West Seattle-relevant traffic cameras, it also includes two links you can use to check for traffic incidents around the metro area – one goes to Traffic.com’s “latest incidents” for the Seattle area, the other goes to the WSDOT Twitter bulletins about the Seattle area. Both are at the top of this page.

jeannie March 9, 2009 (12:55 pm)

Big, loud hail, bouncing off the bushes here in Gatewood. Weird!

What The March 9, 2009 (1:04 pm)

Make it STOP!!!

Kayleigh March 9, 2009 (1:06 pm)

Sunshine downtown.

jsrekd March 9, 2009 (1:07 pm)

Thank you for the information – if you hear that metro is shutting down – read: no more articulated buses – let us know – I’ll start walking from downtown!

P March 9, 2009 (1:07 pm)

NPR just said that I5 up in everett area is shut down for accidents.

Irukandji March 9, 2009 (1:17 pm)

Sun and snow on Admiral.

jeannie March 9, 2009 (1:20 pm)

The hail has stopped – at least for the time being. All hail!

Hope it wasn’t just ushering in snow.

flowerpetal March 9, 2009 (1:20 pm)

I’m looking at lightning bolts on the eastside, maybe around Crossroads.
And with the weather system creeping southward from Everett, that makes me a bit anxious. I do not want another four hour bus ride like the week of Christmas.

JenV March 9, 2009 (1:30 pm)

just drove to White Center and back, crazy hailstorm from the top of Gatewood Hill to White Center. Nothing here in the central/junction area. March is definitely coming in like a lion!

What The March 9, 2009 (1:33 pm)

Snowing hard on 47th Ave SW just south of Erzkine

JenV March 9, 2009 (1:35 pm)

oooh, snowing here now too!

Kayleigh March 9, 2009 (1:37 pm)

Ok, now it’s finally suddenly snowing here on Lake Union downtown.

JenV March 9, 2009 (1:39 pm)

…and it has stopped snowing here. what’s going to happen in 5 minutes?? :D

Buddsmom March 9, 2009 (1:44 pm)

Just hit 3rd and Broad in downtown HARD!!! Huge flakes ,not really sticking as of yet,but taking it’s time melting. Gusty too. It looks like a Christmas snow globe!

JH March 9, 2009 (1:44 pm)

I’m downtown at work, and just watched a literal wall of snow come in from the north. It looked like fog. I’ve never seen anything like it! Now it’s snowing like crazy here.

lina March 9, 2009 (1:57 pm)

i love that picture of the weather coming in over elliot bay- beautiful!

JH March 9, 2009 (2:01 pm)

It looks so bad downtown that we get to go home now! Because of that, I love this snowstorm…

Buddsmom March 9, 2009 (2:08 pm)

To JH….Panic attack! It’s all but quit and didn’t stick!

MsBette March 9, 2009 (2:09 pm)

Tukwila just had a huuuuge dumping, whitening the landscape. Now the parking lot is covered with puddles, and it is lightly snowing. The roads are wet but very driveable.

Kristina March 9, 2009 (2:25 pm)

It has snowed on and off for the past few hours, with no accumulations. My husband called at about 1:00pm to ask how the weather was, and from my home office all I could see was blue sky. Fifteen minutes later, it was all gray….and now it’s snowing. It’s not sticking, though.
(Near the West Seattle Nursery.)

b'smomma March 9, 2009 (2:26 pm)

It’s dumping in the SoDo area. Wahooooooo!

b\'smomma March 9, 2009 (2:35 pm)

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog/40988557.html?blog=y

Not sure if the link above will work, but I found a little video from the UW on komonews.com that shows the convergence zone in action. It’s pretty cool!

Shauna March 9, 2009 (2:36 pm)

Record lows predicted tonight–around 20-23 degrees so it WILL BE ICY later.

Please please give folks a little room while you’re driving.

Stay safe, West Seattle!

JH March 9, 2009 (2:39 pm)

Hey Budd, I have to laugh. I wasn’t panicking! It was the boss man. I think we all forgot we were way up in the sky and it just looked horrible out our windows. By the time I got downstairs, it was barely snowing! Oh well. Most of my coworkers live up north and they had to get home.

Kayleigh March 9, 2009 (2:53 pm)

Sunny now.

Fred March 9, 2009 (2:56 pm)

Snow while the sun was shining. Hail falling straight down. Right now snow is swirling in every direction as it falls to ground. A bit of everything today.

rockergirl5678 March 9, 2009 (3:03 pm)

Snowing hard in North Bellevue near 520 – starting to stick to driveways – will be fun getting home to West Seattle!

Admiral Lady March 9, 2009 (3:50 pm)

I heard of BAD blocked traffic on 520 heading into Seattle due to an accident in the middle lane near the 405 interchange. Avoid 520 if you can!!

WSB March 9, 2009 (4:00 pm)

If you need to check traffic from around the area, not just WS, we have two links atop our traffic page:
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?page_id=60
one that goes to Traffic.com’s “latest incidents” (they also feed news to local radio and TV so they’re pretty much on top of things) and another to WSDOT’s Twitter feed for Seattle, which indeed mentioned that 520 situation a month ago – TR