Snowflakes drift back into the forecast for a few spots

SEATTLE -- Here we go again.

The Midwest is renowned for storm chasers, but around here, winter weather is highlighted by snowflake chasers, and both have difficult tasks in tracking elusive meteorological elements.

Of course, the stakes are considerably lower here, but the interest is arguably just as high as snow lovers eagerly wait to find if they'll be able to perhaps skip a day of class and get a snowman built.

And the snowflake chasers will be out again for the middle of this week as a cool air mass moving in in the wake of a storm on Tuesday will bring snow levels down to within shouting distance of sea level late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. But with moisture in limited supply, it'll once again be a hit-and-miss chase-the-snow type scenario where much of the region remains blank.

Snow is of no lowland concern in the meantime, as another rather routine rainy/windy storm barrels through western Washington on Tuesday into early Wednesday morning. Temperatures will be well into the 40s. Nothing to see here...

But colder air will move in from the Gulf of Alaska on Wednesday evening, dropping snow levels to about 400-500 feet by midnight Thursday morning. We're running out of moisture here, but a few lingering showers could bring a dusting to an inch of snow on the higher hilltops, especially out east in the Cascade foothills. A Puget Sound Convergence Zone is also possible and that favored area between Shoreline and Everett could also see a dusting to an inch of snow. The Downtown Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma cores once again look to miss out on any snow, save for maybe a dusting on the high hilltops.

Essentially, it's a similar pattern to what happened in mid-December with our pockets of snow, only subtract out the Hood Canal snows that brought several inches there between Dec. 18 and 24. (This is not a Hood Canal snow pattern).

Whatever falls is likely doomed for daylight Thursday as we'll still warm back up into the upper 30s, but any showers during the day could still bring a mix or brief wet snow.

By Thursday night we're out of moisture and about 95% of the region will be looking at a dry and partly cloudy night. The exception is that some models indicate a lingering convergence zone is possible in that south Snohomish County area so that limited area has a chance of a second round of light snow overnight into early Friday morning.

Friday is looking mostly dry across the area with plain old January routine low-40s rain at times for the weekend. Snowflake chasers will just have to migrate somewhere colder.