You didn't need those to know who was commuting in from where Monday morning-- you could basically judge by the amount of snow on the cars -- especially commuting in from the North Sound or Eastside. The more snow on the cars, the farther their commute was this morning.

On my way in from the North Sound along I-5, it was pretty simple: 3" on the car? Probably Everett. 1.5" on the car? Probably Shoreline. No snow on the car? Likely Seattle, or lucky enough to have a garage.

It is an amazing display of how variable snow is around here. Many folks coming to Seattle started their day amid a winter wonderland, and by the time you get to Downtown Seattle, there's barely a dusting (let's call it a "du".)

But the outlying area snow was plenty to force many school districts to cancel or delay classes and making for hazardous morning driving.

Firefighters and police officers responded to dozens of spinouts and crashes overnight as ice and snow covered many side streets and freeways. Interstate 5 was slowed to a crawl in Snohomish County, and Highway 410 was shut down through Sumner because of multiple collisions.

Many areas in Kitsap and Snohomish County saw anywhere from 1-5" of snow overnight.

Some area snow totals from the storm.

• Chimacum: 7"
• Roy: 5"
• Sultan: 5"
• Quilcene: 5"
• Mill Creek: 4-6"
• Carnation: 4"
• Bothell: 4"
• Lynnwood: 4"
• Poulsbo: 4"
• Clearview: 4"
• Puyallup: 4"
• Graham: 3.5"
• Edmonds: 3"
• Kingston: 3"
• Mukilteo: 3"
• Marysville: 3"
• Port Angeles: 3"
• Enumclaw: 2"
• Mountlake Terrace: 1.5"
• Everett: 1.5"
• Spanaway: 1"
• Tacoma: 3/4"

Another storm Monday night into Tuesday brought more snow to the Bellingham area, but left the bulk of the rest of the region with just a cold rain.

However, the mountains were to be clobbered with snow. A HEAVY SNOW WARNING was in effect until 4 a.m. Wednesday. The Cascades could see a foot of new snow by Tuesday midday, and then more snow through the day to where storm totals by Wednesday could reach 3-4 *feet*!

Cool air returns once again behind that front for Wednesday, leaving us with again with random hit-and-miss rain or snow showers with spotty accumulations to an inch or so, but showers will be pretty isolated.

Another storm rolls in Wednesday night and Thursday, almost setting up a similar pattern to tonight, but in this case, the air looks a couple of degrees warmer. So while we might briefly begin as snow, the changeover to rain will be much quicker to the point that accumulations aren't much of a concern.

Thursday is then rainy and breezy with highs near 40.

We stay wet at times through the weekend, with temperatures hanging around right along the fringe of snow at times -- especially at night -- so we won't be out of the woods for quite some time yet.

Stay safe out there and make sure that license plate frame -- as well as the rest of the car -- stays on the road :)