Seattle area weather: Last bit of rain before ‘impressive’ warmup

“After the rains came, there was a final battle: The grey clouds rolled and thundered, but the sun pierced through the darkness, throwing its golden spears down to Earth.

“And when the war was won, the bluest of blue and puffiest of white were all that remained, and across the Earth an explosion of white petals left a confetti trail to lead the way to spring.”

This quote, by author Jamie Beck, effectively illustrates Seattle’s weather this week. Spring will soon (in exactly one week!) officially usher us into its grasp, but before that, a little more rain, and a little more gray, as winter would like it.

Showers will continue Tuesday, saturating the grounds and helping to produce scattered thunderstorms across Western Washington, the National Weather Service said.

The mountain passes, including Stevens and Snoqualmie, will pick up another 8 to 10 inches of snow Tuesday.

The system overhead will exit to the east overnight, taking much of the region’s precipitation with it, as a ridge of high pressure builds offshore. Wednesday will bring some lingering showers, if any, as high pressure begins to slide over the region, the weather service said.

The clouds are expected to have leaked out all their moisture by Thursday, leaving the region dry as temperatures warm into the mid to upper 50s.

An “impressive” ridge of high pressure will then catapult the mercury up the thermometer over the weekend, the weather service said. Temperatures are expected to bounce around the low to mid-60s Friday — with some areas hugging 70 — before warming even more Saturday and Sunday.

The chance of 70-degree weather over the weekend in areas away from the water, especially in the Cascade foothills and south of Olympia, is as high as 70%, the weather service said.

There’s a chance for record-breaking max temperatures, too, but “all this is semantics,” the weather service said.

“This will be a beautiful March weekend across Western Washington.”