Friday’s windstorm will not likely be a bomb cyclone. What to expect

The “beast of a surface low” continues to loiter over the Pacific Ocean and is soon to double down and deepen again — but the National Weather Service doesn’t expect its impacts to match Tuesday’s.

It likely won’t meet “the generic definition of a bomb cyclone, where it deepens out really, really quickly,” said Harrison Rademacher, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Seattle.

But we’ll feel its ensuing winds nonetheless.

Swirling a couple hundred miles off the coast, the pattern spun showers out of its circulation on Thursday.

The weather service predicted up to a quarter-inch of rainfall in the lowlands on Thursday, while an inch or two of wintry precipitation landed in the higher mountain passes.

Widespread rainfall is greeting Western Washington on Friday morning, along with familiar impacts from the deepening low-pressure system that parallels the coast.

There’s a 70% to 80% chance of wind speeds higher than 30 mph Friday along the coast. A wind advisory is in place.

The advisory also covers the Cascade foothills from Thursday night into Friday morning, as the system is likely to coax easterly winds with gusts up to 50 mph through the gaps once again.

The advisory includes towns in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties: Bellevue, Bonney Lake, Bothell, Covington, Enumclaw, Kenmore, Kirkland, Maple Valley, Monroe, Newport Hills, Pine Lake, Prairie Ridge, Redmond, Sahalee and Woodinville.

“Winds aren’t expected to be as strong as Tuesday evening’s, but conditions could make cleanup efforts complicated for already wind-beaten areas,” the NWS said.

The remaining areas of Western Washington, like Seattle, will likely see gusts peak at about 25 mph.

Warm air will accompany the system, Rademacher said, “so more than likely, we’ll see highs in the mid-50s, which is good news for people who still don’t have power from the winds.”

Drippy clouds will linger and winds will begin to ease into Saturday as the system persists offshore.

An incoming warm front will punch snowfall elevation above 6,000 feet over the weekend, allowing precipitation to fall as rain in the mountains.

“But a trailing cold front,” the weather service said, “will crash snow levels back down to 3,500 feet for the mountains by Tuesday.”