Snow event update

Ferndale area neighbors saw more snow on the ground when they awoke this morning than they probably expected. And with that snow came scheduling changes and driving challenges.

At 6:30am, the Ferndale School District announced they would be operating two hours later than normal and early dismissal for elementary students to allow for parent-teacher conferences was not going to happen since those conferences were being cancelled and would be rescheduled. Lummi Nation Schools also announced they would be delayed two hours.

The majority of the snowfall happened between 11pm and 3am. When people started driving to work after 5am, What-Comm dispatch became busy with calls of vehicles that had slid off the road and some that had rolled over in the process. Fortunately for Ferndale drivers, only a handful of these events occurred in the Ferndale area.

Two semis found themselves off the roadway on Mountain View west of Church Road. This required closing Mountain View while the rigs were recovered. The road was closed for several hours.

Temperatures around the Ferndale area have been hovering around 32° and are expected to continue to stay there until later in the afternoon. The strong winds did not arrive as forecast but it remain blustery throughout the night with gusts speed hovering around 30mph in the Ferndale area.

Forecasts say it is likely the temperature could reach 40° by 4pm. This could melt much of the remaining frozen precipitation on the roads and make for a safer commute home than was had going to work this morning.

There currently is a small chance another snow event could happen Sunday morning as the possibility of precipitation is forecast to increase to around 30% and temperatures are expected to drop into the mid to low 30s during the early morning hours.