Seattle kicks off 2026 in hide-and-seek mode…then more wind?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

While I’m sure your feed this morning is full of similar sentiments, at least as far as this weather forecast goes, it’ll be the only headline worthy of all capital letters. But we do have some weather events on the menu that are worthy of sentence-case, including another potential bout with some wind.

First up: The Fog.

Seattle did a great job hiding from the rest of the world’s New Year’s celebration with dense fog smothering the Space Needle just as the clock struck midnight. But we’re done with the fog now because now we move on to:

The Rain (Multiple Flavors)

It won’t take long to get our first measurable rain for 2026 as a weak system slides in from the south later Thursday.

For the lowlands, this will just bring a little light “Seattle” rain at times Thursday night into Friday then tapering off later in the day. But if you’re trying to get over Snoqualmie Pass, a period of freezing rain is possible later Thursday into early Friday morning so check pass reports before you head over.

Another weather system comes in Friday night and hangs out all day Saturday for a gray, rainy day. The rain won’t be heavy, so hearty Seattleites will get through just fine. But then we’ve got:

The Wind

The storm’s low pressure center is set to take a swipe at Western Washington overnight Saturday night into pre-dawn Sunday morning. But alas again new year, new forecast model headache as we once again have decent disagreements on how windy it’ll get.

The good news is, unlike the Christmas Eve “storm”, the upper end of this storm forecast is not significant or alarming. The high-end scenarios paint a swath of wind that could bring gusts to 40-50 mph across much of Western Washington — highest chances along the coast and Northwest Interior but Puget Sound in the mix. The timing as of now is from just about after midnight Sunday morning into daybreak. Others models keep the winds in the 20-30 mph range.

(For what it’s worth this time, the European model, which was one of the main skeptics of the Christmas Eve event that didn’t pan out, was leaning more on the stronger side of this event earlier this week but has now backed off some. On its ensemble model that runs 50 different versions of itself, only 3 predict 50+ mph gusts in Seattle as of its Thursday morning model run.)

Since the grounds aren’t as saturated as before and deciduous trees are bare and we’re talking a period when few will be out and about, I suspect any impacts will be few and minor. If you’re out late that Saturday night just be mindful of the winds.

The winds will taper off as Sunday gets going, and the rest of the day will feature just a few lingering showers.

But we’re not quite done because we’ve got to talk about:

The Coastal Flooding

We’re back into a period of king tides this weekend and combined with the (somewhat) stormy weather with wind and waves, and (somewhat) lower atmospheric pressure that will give a gentle vertical pull on the water, there is a risk of minor to moderate coastal flooding along the coast and even along the inland waters of Puget Sound/Salish Sea.

A Coastal Flood Advisory is in effect for Thursday along the coast, but it’s Friday through the weekend with the stormier weather where the flooding could reach its peak of 2-2.5 feet above usual high tide.

The National Weather Service in Seattle is warning that if the weekend ends up stormier and times it right with high tides, there could be some major coastal flooding along the coast, but those levels are still uncertain. If we head in that direction, I’ll go back to using all caps.

The Next System

We’ll get a brief break in the weather on Monday before the next rain looks to arrive in the middle of the week. That storm may pull in a brief period of cooler air behind it so maybe some lowering snow levels and a nice fresh big dollop of snow in the mountains. If that becomes more confident, skiers I’ll trot out the all caps for you for sure 🙂