A strong reminder that it's still winter came blowing through the Puget Sound area Wednesday, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, mounds of snow to the mountains, and still the threat of a little snow in the lowlands.

So far, wind has been the biggest problem with this storm. Gusts have been as high as 50-65 mph in spots around the Puget Sound area.

A 51 mph gust on Lake Washington just before 5 p.m. forced the closure of the 520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge during the height of the commute. Engineers then discovered that part of the bridge was damaged and would be closed until it could be fixed.

We've also had reports of a few scattered power outages around the area.

Here are some peak gusts as of Wednesday evening:

Ocean Shores: 68 mph
Hoquiam: 62 mph
Enumclaw: 60 mph
Whidbey Island: 59 mph
Seattle (Sea-Tac) 53 mph
Vail: 52 mph
520 Bridge: 51 mph
Shelton: 51 mph
Bellingham: 47 mph
Forks: 46 mph
Seattle (Boeing Field): 46 mph
Friday Harbor: 45 mph
Everett: 45 mph
Tacoma: 43 mph
Port Angeles: 41 mph
Olympia: 39 mph

The winds tapered off Wednesday night.

Heavy snows also fell in the mountains causing occasional lane restrictions on I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass. Up to 2 feet of snow fell through Thursday morning.

Mt. Baker ski area even had to temporarily halt operations Wednesday due to blizzard like conditions.

In the lowlands, a few snow showers were expected early Thursday morning -- Eatonville seemed the big snow lottery winner with 2-3 inches -- but the what snow showers that were out there will change to rain as the day heats up.

Check the KOMO Weather Center for the full extended forecast.

In the meantime, for those counting the days until winter ends -- you have until a week from Monday :)