**A WIND ADVISORY has been issued for the Hood Canal area from NOON today until to MIDNIGHT tonight. Click here for more details**

It’s going to be a very wet and breezy 48 hours as a strong Pacific storm rolls through the Western Washington lowlands. Thanks to the Kitsap Peninsula’s unique topography, it appears only the Hood Canal area will experience the strongest winds. Sustained winds of 30-39 mph can be expected, with gusts as high as 57 mph. But for most of us, it will just be another Washington winter soaker.

This system exits Wednesday evening, and behind it follows some cooler air. This won’t be a dramatic cool down by any means, but our overnight and early morning hours could certainly be cold enough to support periods of light snow or rain/snow through Friday night. However, we not only lose moisture after Wednesday, but this setup also isn’t prime for Kitsap snow. If a convergence zone sets up and extends west enough, north Kitsap could see a few slushy flakes. However, for most of us it will be dry and cold. Highs will be in the upper 30s with lows in the 20s and lower 30s.

Forecast models are currently struggling with Saturday’s system, and this one looks like it could be our snow-maker. Confidence in any snow forecast is low around here, but with the cold air already trapped in place, I don’t see how precipitation arriving in our neck of the woods wouldn’t at least start out as snow. Saturday’s potential snow is only worth mentioning for now, so stay tuned!

Past next weekend models have latched on to a generally cool and periodically wet pattern. It’s tough to say if we’ll be cool enough for any significant snow at this point, but to me this looks like mid December’s pattern. I do expect we’ll see a snow event before we warm up for good, though.

Stay warm and dry out there!

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

E-mail: forecastingkitsap@live.com