Pinpoint Alert: Brace for heavy rains, strong winds on Saturday night

Active November weather is kicking up in the Northwest, right on cue. We have several stormy periods ahead, with the strongest winds of the season so far arriving Saturday night.

But Friday will be a day to be weather-aware as well. Rain showers will be moving through during the day.

It will also start getting windy into Friday morning across the coast and northern parts of the area, where a Wind Advisory has been issued. We could see winds at the coast and north/west of Everett gusting over 40mph through Friday, with an isolated 50 mph gust near the beaches. Elsewhere, including Puget Sound, the wind gusts will likely be in the 20- 30 mph range for Friday. A pretty typical blustery day in the Northwest in November.

Rain chances should exit by Saturday morning, giving us a brief dry break to start the weekend. And it will actually be a pretty balmy November day, with highs climbing into the 60s in some spots. While there could be a light rain shower during the Huskies game in Seattle, bad weather should hold off until after sunset.

This will be a more potent system arriving Saturday evening and into Saturday night, bringing another round of heavier rain and, more notably, stronger winds. KIRO 7 meteorologists have called a Pinpoint Alert for Saturday evening and Saturday night, and all locations in western Washington will see wind.

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At this point, this does not look like a major windstorm, but gusts could top 50 mph along the coast, with gusts over 40 mph looking likely across much of the interior of western Washington — including Puget Sound.

Since many of our trees still have some leaves on them, they’ll catch more of the wind than they would later in the season. That means this system bears watching for the potential for power outages and tree damage. Keep your devices charged in case you lose power after dark on Saturday!

Fortunately, the main system looks like it will move through by Sunday morning, still leaving behind blustery showers and cooler air. Highs Sunday will settle back into the low to mid 50s. For the Seahawks game, we’re likely looking at sunbreaks and scattered showers, and a brisk southwesterly breeze.

We’ll then get another brief dry break Monday.

One thing we won’t have to worry much about with this stretch of storms is significant mountain-pass snow. Snow levels should generally remain at or above 5,000 feet through the rainy stretch tonight into the weekend, meaning we’re expecting rain rather than snow for the major passes.

The overall weather pattern looks quite active across the Pacific Northwest next week, with the potential for additional potent storm systems and atmospheric rivers coming off the Pacific. There is still considerable uncertainty over exactly where those systems will track and, perhaps more importantly, where the atmospheric-river moisture plumes will be aimed.

Those differences are significant, so we’ll be watching how the forecast evolves over the next several days.