Good morning!
Mt. Hood is in a pattern of NW flow right now, resulting in orographic showers (yeah, that’s my favorite phrase). We’ll see light to moderate snow showers until midnight or so, with total water value of .25-.5”. Snow level today will be around 1000’. Winds will be NW at 10-20, dropping to light and variable late afternoon. We’ve seen about .1” of water value since 4am, so we should see another 3-4” of snow today.
Tomorrow looks clear, cold and calm with no precipitation. (boring)
Tuesday starts off clear, cold and calm (no fun to forecast), with increasing clouds midday. LIght wind builds to WSW at 15-25 by 4pm, increasing to SW 35-40 by 4am. Precipitation starts around 4pm Tuesday, with one model showing .1” water value and another showing 3-.5” water value overnight. Call it 4-5” overnight Tuesday. The snow level will be at the surface through Wednesday morning.
On Wednesday, snow levels slowly rise to 5000-6000’ by 4pm from an overrunning warm system, falling to 4500’ or so overnight. At this point, I’m thinking we’ll see snow (because I am an optimist), but periods of sleet, rain, or snain (especially snain) are not out of the question. Total precipitation on Wednesday will be 1-1.5”, so call it 4-6” of sludge at the base, rain at HRM and 12-15” of snow up high. The real problem on Wednesday looks like wind. Early in the day, we’ll see SW 35-40, increasing to SW 50-60 by mid-morning, going to W 40-50 by 7pm. We may be protected from the worst of the wind during the day due to the wind direction, but there is a good chance we’ll lose some lifts. A shutdown on Wednesday night is a distinct possibility.
Thursday is a long way out, but at this point, it looks like we’ll see the snow level at 5000’ with 1-2” of water value for 6-8” of heavy snow at the base and 18-22” higher up. Winds will be WSW 30-40 on Thursday.
The weather situation in the Gorge does not look pretty Tuesday night into Thursday morning.
Have a great day today!
Temira