PHOENIX – A winter weather system is expected to bring widespread rain to the Phoenix area starting Thursday night and the largest snowstorm of the season to northern Arizona.
“It’s going to be a pretty widespread rainmaker for much the state,” Ryan Worley of the National Weather Service in Phoenix told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday morning.
Parts of the Valley could see heavy showers starting after 7 p.m. Thursday, with totals from 0.2 to 0.3 inches by Friday morning, Worley said.
“It looks like the majority of the rain’s going to fall between late Thursday and very early Friday, but there certainly could be some lingering showers as we go throughout the day on Friday,” Worley said.
The Valley skies are expected to be clear by Saturday, with temperatures remaining below normal – highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s – through the weekend before warming up.
“We might even approach 80 degrees again as we head into the middle portions of next week, but we’ve got highs in the middle to upper 70s as we approach Tuesday and Wednesday,” Worley said.
How much snow is expected in northern Arizona?
Some snow fell Wednesday night in northern Arizona in elevations above 6,000 feet, with overnight totals in Coconino County ranging from 0.2 inches in Doney Park to 4 inches at the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort. A stronger winter blast is expected to arrive Thursday night and dump snow until Saturday morning, Justin Johndrow of the National Weather Service’s Flagstaff bureau told KTAR News on Thursday morning.
“This will be the biggest storm that we’ve had this season,” he said.
Lower-elevation cities will probably get 1 to 3 inches, Johndrow said.
“When you get up higher in the mountains, say Forest Lakes, that area could get closer to 4-8 inches,” he said.
A winter weather advisory for the western Mogollon Rim area, including Flagstaff, is set to run from 5 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Saturday. The storm could create dangerous driving conditions in northern Arizona, including on Interstates 17 and 40.
Source: KTAR News
