505
FXUS66 KOTX 261801
AFDOTX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Spokane WA
1001 AM PST Wed Nov 26 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Mountain snow impacting passes into Friday. Additional snow
  coming in tonight through Thanksgiving.

- Colder temperatures over weekend.

&&

.SYNOPSIS...
Precipitation tapering off this morning. Another round of
precipitation moves in Wednesday night through Thanksgiving.
A mix of rain and snow is expected for the northern mountain
valleys and additional light snow over mountain passes resulting
in minor impacts to travel. A dry, cold air push will bring
colder temperatures for the weekend.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Today through Friday: Active weather will continue through the
Thanksgiving Holiday. The weather system yesterday evening will be
pushing through this morning. Cold front passage will be early this
morning with drier downsloping winds behind the front shutting off
the precipitation in the lee of the Cascades. The westerly flow will
result in some upslope lingering showers in the Panhandle for this
morning, but the dendritic growth zone dries out quickly and
this will quickly lead to a decrease in snow for even for the
Central Panhandle Mountains. The Winter Weather Advisory for the
Cascades out through 4AM and out through 10AM in the Central
Panhandle Mountains look to be on track and no changes are
needed at this hour.

Then a brief break before a warm front pushes across tonight. Snow
levels will be higher with this next front. Not much precipitation
is expected with this front across the Columbia Basin. The
focus of the precipitation will be across the Cascades and
across the northern mountains. Snow levels will be slower to
come up across these zones where a rain/snow mix can be expected
in the valleys. For the most part though, additional snow will
be in the mountains until we see the trailing cold front sweep
across Thursday night. Even then, temperatures and snow levels
will take time to drop with rain switching back to snow for
these northern valleys right at the tail end of the
precipitation. Main impacts will be for winter travel over the
mountain passes. Stevens Pass is expected to see an additional 2
to 5 inches, Washington Pass an additional 5 to 9 inches,
Sherman Pass an additional 3 to 5 inches, and Lookout Pass an
additional 2 to 4 inches. Enough to be a nuisance and will make
travel slick for anyone looking to travel on Thanksgiving into
early the next day. Lookout Pass will start at as rain and then
see a switch over to snow Thanksgiving night.

Friday night through Wednesday: The longwave upper level pressure
pattern will be ridging over the eastern Pacific and troughing over
the Rockies to the central U.S. This will place the Inland Northwest
under a drier and colder northerly flow pattern. This isn`t to say
that it will be completely dry as model guidance does show some weak
disturbances dropping down. One looks to be Saturday into Saturday
night. There isn`t a lot of moisture with this shortwave and may
just bring some cloud cover across the region. A better chance for
wintry precipitation looks to come over the weekend around
early next week. There is still a lot of uncertainty with how
much we could get with this, but temperatures will be colder
and snow levels more likely to be at valley floors. Timing looks
to be mainly for Monday night models are uncertain with the
strength of this wave. Something to watch out for for minor
impacts to the Tuesday morning commute as we approach next week.
Temperatures cool to below normal over the weekend and then see
a slight increase to around normal for late November early next
week. /SVH

&&

.AVIATION...
18Z TAFs: An extremely moist boundary layer coupled with warming
midlevels over light lowland snow will result in high
probabilities for low ceilings (LIFR/IFR) conditions from KCOE-
KGEG with low confidence in exact details with the forecast
through 06z. A deepening low off the WA Coast will result in
increasing easterly winds which leads to higher confidence for
KPUW and KLWS to see improvements though on the contrary, this
will lead to lowering cigs for KEAT and areas across the Basin
including KMWH will be in the cross-hairs with moderate
confidence for periodic improvement. A warm front lifts through
06-10z delivering another band of light rain to the lowlands
snow in the mountains. The period of rain comes with low to
moderate confidence to briefly break up the low clouds but as
the rain departs to the north, cigs are likely to lower again.
/sb



.FORECAST CONFIDENCE AND/OR ALTERNATE SCENARIOS: There is
moderate confidence in MVFR to LIFR through the TAF period for
all sites except for KLWS. For KPUW, there is moderate to high
confidence for rising cigs (HREF has 100% chance to rise above
1000 feet) and maintain 6SM or higher due to persistent easterly
winds. KMWH comes with lower confidence and only 70% for cigs
above 1000 feet. Biggest uncertainty will impacts on vis and
cigs with rain overnight and how quickly conditions deteriorate
in the wake of the rain.

-----------------------

Confidence descriptors:
Low - Less than a 30 percent chance
Moderate - 30 to 70 percent chance
High - Greater than a 70 percent chance

For additional probabilistic information for NWS Spokane
airports,please refer to the Aviation Dashboard on our
webpage: https:/www.weather.gov/otx/avndashboard

&&

.Preliminary Point Temps/PoPs...
Spokane        40  35  42  35  42  25 /  20  40  90  90  40  10
Coeur d`Alene  40  35  41  35  40  25 /  40  50  90  90  60  20
Pullman        41  37  45  36  40  27 /  50  50  70  90  80  30
Lewiston       47  40  49  41  45  33 /  40  50  40  80  80  20
Colville       40  27  38  27  42  20 /   0  30  90  90  30  10
Sandpoint      39  31  38  31  38  22 /  50  40  90 100  70  20
Kellogg        40  37  44  36  39  23 /  70  60  90 100  90  30
Moses Lake     42  37  43  34  46  27 /   0  40  80  60  20  10
Wenatchee      39  36  40  36  43  30 /  10  60  80  80  20  10
Omak           40  33  39  32  42  26 /   0  40  90  60  10  10

&&

.OTX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
WA...Winter Weather Advisory until 4 AM PST early this morning for
     Central Chelan County-Western Chelan County.
ID...Winter Weather Advisory until 10 AM PST this morning for
     Central Panhandle Mountains.

&&

$$