Snow fans got an early Valentine's Day gift from Mother Nature Tuesday morning, as we kick off the beginning of a rather chilly pattern with some snow in spots.

An area of low pressure has dropped south out of Canada, bringing some cold, unstable air along for the ride. In addition, a Puget Sound Convergence Zone was running around most of the night between the general Snohomish and King County areas, bringing occasional lightning, hail and heavy rain or slushy snow -- some of the higher Eastside hills, like Snoqualmie Ridge, did get a few inches of snow overnight as well. (Read more about what Convergence Zones are at this link.)

But it was toward dawn Tuesday when enough cold air mixed in with the Convergence Zone to bring 1-2" of snow to the greater Snohomish County, Whidbey Island, and north King County area.

The zone then drifted south into the Seattle area where it fizzled, but not before putting a little dusting on some of the Seattle-area hilltops.

Icy Roads Now Main Short-Term Concern

We've dried out and cleared out for Tuesday evening as we get under a building chilly, northerly breeze. Lows will range from the low 20s in the outlying areas to the upper 20s in the city -- thus, the entire area will freeze pretty hard tonight.

That brings a two-fold ice concern -- 1) Up north where it snowed this morning and started to melt today -- those wet roads will freeze up tonight. And 2) Even where it didn't snow today, there will likely be black ice concerns.

Thus, be sure to get up early Wednesday and check out the roads tune in to our morning newscast starting at 5 a.m. to see how the roads are doing.

Wednesday is sort of the "tweener" day, with mostly sunny skies and cool, but not bitter cold highs in the low 40s.

Seattle, Meet Mr. Arctic Front

A second wave of even colder arctic air comes in during the day Thursday behind an arctic front blowing in from the north and northeast. The day will likely begin sunny, but we'll see increasing clouds through the day.

We'll get to the moisture challenge here in a second, but as for temperatures go, generally highs will drop into the mid 30s around western Washington, but will be even colder -- around the mid 20s -- near Bellingham/Whatcom County.

That's because behind the front, strong northerly winds will follow through the Fraser River Valley into Whatcom County and then spread south. That will make for wind chills in the teens and 20s around the greater Puget Sound area, and even colder around Bellingham/Whatcom County, where northeast winds could be blowing in the 30-40+ mph range, knocking wind chills into the realm of single digits.

So, Does All This Cold Air Mean Snow?

Now, if what you read before sounds like a complex forecast, you're right, and it only gets more complex from here for Thursday night and Friday, as the forecasting models are not used to dealing with cold air and mountainous topography.

The first challenge now is what to make of that arctic front. The forecasting models are not impressed, barely showing any moisture as the front moves through. But sometimes arctic fronts can create their own weather, perhaps dropping a quick inch or two of snow as it blows through late Thursday and into early Friday. But sometimes they're dry too, so it's hard to gauge what if any snow will come from that.

The second is what to do with an area of low pressure expected to form off the coast. Earlier forecasts had it moving into Oregon, of which we would get the northern fringe and have our moisture source. But lately, the models have been pushing that low further south into California, and both Tuesday early morning and late morning's forecast models are staying with that idea, so the chances of that bringing snow are looking more remote.

So bottom line, we're still not seeing any signs of a widespread snow event -- just perhaps a few spot snow showers and definitely cold. But these patterns sometimes tend to make stuff up as they go along, so we're not going to declare that there's no chance of snow, it's just not a very good one. (Good news for snow fans though -- anything that falls would be snow. No worries about it not being cold enough.)

Lows Thursday night will be in the teens and 20s again, with highs Friday only in the low-mid 30s and again, it'll feel a lot colder with that wind blowing. And it's possible even these numbers are too warm -- the models are actually advertising colder, but they usually overestimate the amount of arctic air that can make it over and through the Cascades, so we're going to go a little warmer.

Once place where it's not too hard to figure out is Eastern Washington, which does not have to worry about any arctic air getting blocked by the Cascades. They are pretty much a slam dunk to go into the icebox by the end of the week with lows near 0 and highs near 20.

Long range models are still dubious to use with such a complex pattern in the shorter term, but taking what they say at face value, we'll stay cold and windy but dry for Saturday, with 32-36/17-25 a good high/low range, and then perhaps moderate a touch into Sunday and early next week amid dry conditions.

Perhaps another bout with cold air could return next week -- although perhaps not quite as cold, but also perhaps not quite as dry either. We'll see :)