Snow began to turn to slush as temperatures warmed and rain began to fall on parts of the North Olympic Peninsula today.
Lowland roads have improved throughout the Peninsula, with most of the heavily-traveled roads, such as U.S. Highway 101, and state highways bare and wet with occasional slush, said county dispatchers and the State Patrol early this afternoon.
Still caution is needed is needed, especially on side streets or in higher elevations where snow remains, said emergency management and law enforcement personnel.
“Heavy rain on top of snow can be very dangerous for drivers,” said Jim Borte, Clallam County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
No wrecks have been reported in either Clallam or Jefferson counties today to county dispatchers or to the State Patrol.
The National Weather Service expects continued warming today with highs in the upper 30 or lower 40s.
A frontal system heavy with moisture but warmer than the three that covered the Peninsula with snow this week is arriving this afternoon, and a series of fronts are expected to come into the area next week.
“We’re changing from snow and ice event to a flooding event, with a whole lot of moisture coming at us for the next week or so,” said Bob Hamlin of Jefferson County Emergency Management.
No outages were reported on the Peninsula.
As of noon today, Clallam Transit service was mostly back to normal.
That included the paratransit and dial-a-ride services.
Exceptions are:
■ The four in-town Port Angeles routes (20, 22,24,26) will remain on an hourly schedule through the end of the day with buses leaving The Gateway transit center at five minutes after each hour.
■ The only routing exception on these routes is that the No. 22 Lincoln/Peabody is not using Whidby or Eunice south of Lauridsen Boulevard.
■ Also, the No. 52 Diamond Point bus will not be routed along Beach Road and instead will turn around at the top of the hill near the airport, and the afternoon No.14 Forks buses departing The Gateway will not serve Peninsula College.
The plan for Saturday is that all routes and schedules will be operated in a normal fashion with no schedule or routing exceptions.
For updates, see www.clallamtransit.com or phone 360-452-4511 or 800-858-3747.
Jefferson Transit remains on snow schedule today, but may change on Saturday following expected rain and change in road conditions, said Tammi Rubert, general manager.
For updates, visit www.jeffersontransit.comor phone 360-385-4777, ext. 1.
The Clallam County Public Utility District today sent a crew of four and three vehicles to assist Peninsula Light Company in Gig Harbor with power restoration.
Peninsula Light, which had about 3,000 customers without power as of about 11 a.m. Friday, made the request as part of a mutual aid agreement.
PUD spokesman Mike Howe said Friday he didn’t know how long the crew would be needed there.
Clallam PUD remained prepared to handle outages locally, said Ken Haman, operations superintendent.
Elsewhere, The Associated Press reports that the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was open today, and airlines were trying to accommodate passengers whose flights were canceled Thursday.
The largest carrier at the airport, Alaska Airlines, canceled 50 of its 120 daily departures today.
On Thursday, Alaska and sister airline Horizon canceled 310 flights to and from Seattle, affecting 29,000 passengers.
Interstate 5 was briefly closed this morning in both directions near Centralia so crews could remove fallen power lines.
Northbound lanes of the interstate in Everett, north of Seattle, were closed much of the morning following a tractor-trailer accident.
Around midday, State Patrol troopers closed both Tacoma Narrows bridges, which connect Tacoma with communities to the west, because of large ice chunks falling onto the bridge deck.
Puget Sound Energy had about 254,000 customers out of service at mid-day, mostly around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia.
Much of Olympia was without power.
