Significant snow, rain headed to Boise region

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Significant snow, rain headed to Boise region

Boise’s dry spell is about to end.

Back-to-back weather systems heading straight for the Treasure Valley this week are expected to bring rain and snow to the Boise area beginning Friday.

Precipitation amounts were hard to predict Thursday, but the most updated forecast shows 0.43 inches landing in Boise over the weekend. It’s a significant amount for the city, which gets an average of 1.24 inches of precipitation in February.

“We have model guidance anywhere from a trace of snow tomorrow to perhaps an inch and a half here,” Stephen Parker, National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Idaho Statesman. “We’re trying to figure out which way that’s going to go.”

The mountains, on the other hand? They’re “going to get hammered,” Parker said. He said Bogus Basin was predicted to get 12 to 18 inches.

A low-pressure system will move inland from the Washington coast late this week. It will quickly be followed by a second system coming in from the central Pacific Ocean, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jackson Macfarlane.

The two systems will combine to bring a heavy flow of moisture, known as an “atmospheric river,” to Idaho.

“It’s a long stream of a lot of moisture coming up from the tropics into our area at this time of year in the winter,” Macfarlane said. “That large amount of moisture is going to be enhanced by the terrain. It is a lot of moisture with favorable dynamics, producing a ton of precipitation.”

The atmospheric river will finally push away the long-hanging inversion over Boise, which has kept a layer of cold air trapped in the Treasure Valley, according to the National Weather Service.

Because of the preexisting inversion and associated cold temperatures, the first wave of moisture to move into Boise on Friday will likely fall as snow between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., according to Parker.

Macfarlane said the snow that falls Friday will not melt immediately because of the cold temperatures caused by the inversion. However, temperatures will rise above freezing as the weather systems continue to move through and the inversion clears out, turning the snow to rain on Saturday night. Additional rounds of rain are expected to fall Sunday morning and afternoon, Parker said.

Highs will be between 39 and 46 degrees over the weekend.

Macfarlane predicted McCall would get about 13 inches of snow and Brundage Mountain about 20 inches. Areas above 8,000 feet, like Banner Summit, could see up to 3 feet.

The heaviest ******* of precipitation is expected to occur Sunday. However, the Weather Service forecasts the wet weather to continue into next week and possibly even longer.

“We’re locked in this weather pattern through early next week, at least through Wednesday,” Macfarlane said. “There’s going to be noticeable breaks, but it’s going to be wet for a while.”

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