Up to 2 inches of snow expected in Spokane for potentially messy Monday commute, forecasters say

Anticipated snowfall on Sunday night into early morning followed by a drop in temperature could make for icy roads and a messy commute between Coeur d’Alene and Spokane.

The snow will kick off a much colder week throughout the region as daytime high temperatures are expected to struggle to eclipse freezing through the weekend.

National Weather Service meteorologist Valerie Thaler said downtown Spokane could see as much as 2 inches of snow before dawn on Monday. Temperatures are expected to reach a high of 30 degrees on Monday.

“We may see some lingering snow showers through the day on Monday and into Monday evening and maybe through early Tuesday morning,” Thaler said. “We are expecting temps to remain pretty cold through Thursday and potentially into Friday.”

Coeur d’Alene could see an inch or two of snow more than Spokane, she said.

There won’t be any severe wind like last week, but Thaler said wind chill values coming from the northeast could bring temperatures down to the single digits.

A slight chance of snow is in the forecast Tuesday night into Wednesday, with otherwise sunny conditions through the weekend. Some fog is also in the forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties will be under a winter storm warning through 10 a.m. Monday, as well as some of the northern reaches of Spokane County. The warning also includes areas of North Idaho, including Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint, through 4 p.m. Monday, with as much as 10 inches of snow possible in areas. The city of Spokane is under a winter weather advisory until 4 p.m. Monday.

Remaining power outages

Crews had mostly restored power throughout the Inland Northwest by Sunday evening after a storm bringing gusts in excess of 60 mph to the region ripped through Friday night.

Power was restored to nearly all of Avista’s customers by Sunday night following last week’s wind storm, utility spokesman David Vowells said on Sunday.

Nearly 19,000 people were without power at the peak of the storm on Saturday morning, Vowells said. Only a few hundred, primarily south of Coeur d’Alene, remained without power as of Sunday night.

“The primary cause of the outages was weather-related, as the windstorm caused leafy wet tree branches to come into contact with power lines,” Vowells said.

The fall weather left many trees still covered in leaves, making their branches more susceptible to breaking during snowy weather.

Avista is monitoring the snow potential for Monday to cause more power interruptions, he said. Customers can find more-up-to date details on the Avista on the utility company’s outage map at outagemap.myavista.com.

The recent power outages pale in comparison to previous windstorms. About 180,000 Avista customers had a power interruption in a November 2015 storm, and about 70,000 were left without power in a January 2021 storm.