Category: Forecast

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Good morning!

There’s a ton of new snow in the mountains this morning, and your chance to enjoy it is now. Early. Go get it. There’s a gullywasher on the way later, with several inches of rain forecast to fall later today into tomorrow.

(And don’t forget about the winter storm warning in the upper Hood River Valley, where 4-8 inches of snow is predicted.)

The question, of course, is what time the rain will start at Meadows and T-Line today. I don’t know, of course, but I’m going to guess 11am. That’s just a guess, and it’s probably tinted with a bit of optimism about epic ski conditions early this morning. 18” of new is a lot. Winds will start out fairly light with this storm, but around mid-afternoon, they’ll start picking up. We’ll see averages in the 25-30 range this evening, picking up into the 30-35 range by tomorrow morning.

Models are suggesting we’ll get lucky tomorrow, as far as rain goes, with the bulk of the precipitation staying north of the Columbia River. That isn’t going to save us from the wind, however. Enough wind on the slopes to affect lift operations at all the ski areas Sunday seems a pretty safe bet.

At this point, it looks like this afternoon, tomorrow and Monday are write offs on Mt. Hood, with high snow levels, strong wind, and rainfall measured in inches. Snow returns early Tuesday morning, with dumping snow, 3000’ snow levels, and more snow falling all next week. Winds will be quite strong on Tuesday, picking up into the very strong range overnight, and continuing into Wednesday.

If you are a boater, you’re super stoked. The White Salmon was at 3 feet yesterday, and will keep rising. The Hood peaked at 7.1ft, and was back down to 5.5 or so last night. It will rise significantly over the next couple of days, likely going well over this week’s previous high of 7.1 feet. If you’re just a person curious as to what rivers are at or near flood stage, check out the Northwest River Forecast Center website. Here’s the link to the current level of the Hood River.

Have an awesome day today!

Temira

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Access to super cheap gear including Trew, Zeal, Sierra Designs, and many more.

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Good morning!

It’s still snowing in the mountains. Well, it’s still snowing at Meadows and Timberline, but poor Skibowl is getting rain right now. Meadows had 7” in the last 24 hours at the base, but there’s likely quite a bit more new snow higher up. With colder temperatures up top yesterday, the snow was in good shape (in other words, it was not Cascade Concrete) at 3:30pm, so I’m recommending you ski today if you can.

Tomorrow also looks excellent, with colder temperatures and another 12-18” of snow between now and tomorrow morning.

Winds will be in the 20-30 range today and tomorrow, with temperatures in the upper twenties to low thirties today and mid to upper twenties tomorrow. Snow will fall all day today and tonight, pausing briefly tomorrow morning until 9am or so, and then snowing again through around midnight tomorrow night.

Saturday looks problematic. Precipitation starts off as snow, but by noon, changes to a torrential downpour up to about 10,000’ feet. No, I didn’t not include an extra zero there. Depending on which model you favor, the Mt. Hood area will see between 2” and 6” of warm rain on Saturday. Models suggest rain on Mt. Hood will taper off on Sunday (but not further north), but if we get unlucky, we’ll see another drenching. Temperatures return to seasonal norms by Tuesday, with a return to snow in the mountains. In addition to the rain, we’ll see wind. The wind starts off light, but as the front approaches midday, winds climb into the 50-60mph range at 5000 feet overnight Saturday into Sunday morning.

If you’re a boater and you like flood waters, get ready, because you’ll have what you want by Sunday morning. The Hood is currently at 4.3 feet, and is forecast to hit 6.8 feet on Sunday. I think that forecast is a bit low, and am sorely wishing I could be at Big Bear Rapid (the one that replaced the Powerdale Dam) taking pictures on Sunday.

Have an awesome day today!

Temira

p.s. If you find this report useful, entertaining, or just want to recognize all the hard work that goes into it, please take the time to make a donation by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. For a suggested donation of $10, I’ll add you to the email version of this list ‘til November 2011, putting you in the running for cool prizes donated by the weekly sponsors.