Seattle weather: Air quality issues and freezing fog in Puget Sound

Seattle weather: Patchy morning fog, mostly sunny afternoons

FOX 13 Meteorologist Abby Acone has your forecast.

SEATTLE - While the recent sunshine has been beautiful, we're unfortunately dealing with some air quality issues and times of freezing fog and black ice in the coming days.

This afternoon, continued across the South Sound and redeveloped in other places in Western Washington. Freezing fog will remain a problem during the overnight hours into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Not only are we concerned about visibility, there will be icy spots—especially on bridges and overpasses. Make sure to carve out extra time in your evening and morning routine to scrape the windshield.

Due to a high pressure system remaining overhead, air quality has dropped the last few evenings according to Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Through Wednesday, we expect similar conditions as this stagnant weather pattern persists. The worst conditions will happen at night. Air quality could drop to "unhealthy for sensitive groups" or "unhealthy" levels at times.

The National Weather Service has posted a Freezing Fog Advisory for Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia, Shelton, Bellingham, the Hood Canal and much of the Kitsap Peninsula. This alert continues until 10 a.m. Tuesday due to lowered visibility down to a quarter of a mile or less. Bridges and overpasses could be slick.

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Highs tomorrow will once again reach the mid to upper 40s. Any low 50s will be the exception rather than the rule. Freezing fog will give way to afternoon sunshine.

As wet weather surges back into Western Washington by Thursday night, air quality is expected to improve. We'll also say "so long" to the fog by the end of the week thanks to the damp and unsettled air making a comeback.

Even though times of ice and frost are possible over the passes the next few days, snow Friday and Saturday could create more challenges for folks driving over the mountain highways. Stay tuned for more details!

As temperatures warm up slightly into Monday, snow levels will rise. Over most of the mountain passes, snow will switch to chilly rain by Monday. In the lowlands, heavy rain could make driving difficult sometime Sunday into Monday. Wind could also be a factor in the forecast Friday, Sunday and Monday. We'll keep a close watch on this.