The first snowy weather of the season dropped about 2 inches on the West End of the North Olympic Peninsula and slowly tapered off as it moved east, dusting Sequim and Port Townsend on Sunday.
Electricity was disrupted, and there were dozens of traffic incidents but no serious injuries.
The weather will get more frightful today when a new system is expected to move through the area, said meteorologist Dennis D’Amico of the National Weather Service.
The system, which will move in from the Northeast, will bring about an inch of snow as well as wind throughout the Peninsula, he said.
By this evening, D’Amico said, he expected northeast winds to be sustained at about 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 40 mph.
Windchill
“We’ll see windchill in the zero- to 10-degree range,” he said.
“There will be about an inch of snow, with more, of course, in the higher altitudes.”
On Sunday, there was about 1.9 inches of snow in the Joyce area and about an inch in Port Angeles.
About 2,000 people west of Port Angeles were without power for about six hours Sunday when a tree near Laird’s Corner fell on Bureau of Reclamation lines that then fell on Clallam County Public Utility District lines, said PUD spokesman Mike Howe.
Laird’s Corner is near the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 112.
The power was restored mid-afternoon after the PUD transformer was repaired, Howe said.
Minor accidents
People were sliding off the road left and right in Clallam County, but no serious injuries were reported late in the day, said the State Patrol and Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
Five people suffered minor injuries in a midday, two-car wreck at U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 112, the State Patrol said.
The names of the people were not available Sunday night. None of them had serious injuries, the State Patrol said.
A two-car wreck on Old Mill Road included one car rolling over several times, but no one was injured, said sheriff’s Sgt. Nick Turner.
Most of the wrecks involved vehicles running off into ditches on the sides of roads. They numbered in the dozens by late evening.
“We get people driving too fast for conditions, and then they hit a telephone pole or go into a ditch,” Turner said.
East Jefferson County didn’t have the same sort of weather issues.
“We have not had any weather-related issues,” said Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez. “We’ve had snow off and on all day, but it has been really, really light.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
