WEATHER REPORT >>>

When you need a weather report, you turn to the Weekly Volcano – that and hundreds of cute, local snow-related photos. Here's the latest from Accuweather.com:

State College, Pa. - 18 January 2012 - AccuWeather.com reports schools are closed and a traveler's nightmare is under way in much of western Washington today with a storm dumping a winter's worth of snow in less than 24 hours.

Snow that began whitening Portland late on Tuesday evening spent the overnight hours spreading northward along Interstate 5 to Seattle.

While the snow has transitioned to soaking rain in Portland, the same will not happen in Seattle.

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Snow totals will approach or top a foot in Tacoma and Olympia through this evening, falling at an inch-per-hour pace for a time.

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The storm barreling into the Northwest today will depart tonight with the Northeast as its final destination. A seemingly endless train of Pacific storms into the Northwest will follow through next week.

The impending Pacific storms are expected to be warmer than the current system, meaning rain not snow is in the forecast for Seattle and the other lower elevations of western Washington. Today's snow will also melt, heightening the risk of urban and poor drainage flooding.

Written by Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist for AccuWeather.com