The Pacific Northwest holds on to another cloudy day with mountain snows and valley showers as a frontal boundary is stalled offshore. The forecast doesn’t call for any improvement in the weather department as a stronger cold front will make it’s way onshore during the day Friday and bring with it an increased chance for valley rain and heavier mountain snows. The rest of the westcoast will get into the action later Saturday and through the day Sunday as a sharp upper-level trough really digs south through the  Westcoast States and into the desert Southwest.

The map below  illustrates where the cold front is currently situated (Coastal New England southwest to Northern Texas) and it’s associated cloudiness and anafrontal showers.

National Satellite/Radar Composite (13Z)

Showers along the cold front are generally light through New England and the Mid-Atlantic States. Heavier shower/t-storm activity may be found from Oklahoma to Tennessee where there are increased levels of instability.

Behind the cold front, northerly winds accompanied by a large area of high pressure building in from Canada will dry out the atmosphere under mostly sunny skies. Temperatures behind the front are running 10 to 20 degrees cooler today than this time yesterday across the Great Lakes and Mid-West.

The general pattern through the weekend will call for pleasant weather with a large ridge across the eastern third of the nation while the Western States will continue to be unsettled with below average temperatures, plenty of cloud cover, valley rain, and a lowering elevation for mountain snows.