A low-pressure weather system is lined up to hit the Wood River Valley tonight and into the weekend, delivering cold temperatures and, possibly, snow in the higher elevations.
A weather forecast from the National Weather Service this morning predicts that the system will roll into the region later today, bringing a 40 percent chance of snow tonight. The greatest chance of snow, according to the National Weather Service, will come during the day Friday and again on Saturday night.
The latest NWS forecast for Ketchum is:
Today: A 10 percent chance of snow showers after noon. Partly sunny, with a high near 49. North northwest wind 7 to 11 mph becoming south.
Tonight: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 16. Northwest wind between 11 and 14 mph becoming calm. Winds could gust as high as 22 mph. Little or no snow accumulation expected.
Friday: A 50 percent chance of snow. Cloudy, with a high near 41. North northwest wind between 5 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible.
Friday night: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 15. North northwest wind between 7 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.
Saturday: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 34. North northwest wind between 13 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph.
Saturday night: A 50 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 14.
Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 41.
Sunday night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 14.
Okay, but that was in a mountainous area. How about lower elevations? Well, here is a report from KAPP TV in Yakima, Washington:
YAKIMA -- The cold weather has turned this year's harvest into a race against time.
Barret Orchard workers are scrambling to get the red wine grapes off the vine.
"They're perfect right now, we've got real good sugars in these reds right now," says owner Mark Barret.
Since they don't have a machine, workers have to do it by hand as fast as they can.
If the grapes stay on the vine for much longer, our recent cold weather may make them not so perfect.
"If it's gonna get down to 25 we can get some freeze damage in them and they won't have as good of a quality in the grape," says Barret.
The cold weather has pushed up not only the grape harvest, but the apple harvest as well.
An even wider range of plummeting temperatures was reported by the Weather Underground:
The season's first large western snowstorm was expected to continue across the Intermountain West and northern Rockies on Sunday, while showers and thunderstorms were forecast from the southern Plains to the upper Mississippi Valley.
Snow was predicted as far east as western Colorado and the western Dakotas. The heaviest snow was expected from eastern Idaho into northern Wyoming and eastern Montana, where up to a foot or more was likely.
Severe thunderstorms were possible across parts of the southern and central Plains, with the main threat being large hail and damaging winds.
Tranquil weather was forecast for the rest of the nation, except for parts of the Southeast, where scattered showers and thunderstorms were possible.
Another chilly day was forecast across the West. Temperatures could drop to record or near-record levels Sunday morning in parts of the Pacific Northwest and California.
It's a bit tough to be injecting global warming into this campaign when much of the nation is experiencing record or near-record cold temperatures even though we are still in the first half of October. Or should the manufactured climate change crises shift gears to warn of impending global cooling? In any event, the global warming topic seems to have gone missing from the campaign trail.
