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Good morning!
First off, an update at 7:40am. To the f***ing bastards who broke into my friend’s bike shop and stole bikes last night, I hope you find yourself stuck on the road daily with a flat tire. I hope your car catches fire and burns to the ground and you have no way to get around. I hope any bike you ever own requires a new drive train every 6 months, and I hope you realize what evil, horrible people you are and suffer from guilt and depression until you pay penance and show remorse and make it up to the world by providing bikes to people who can’t afford them. Anyone who steals bikes deserves to rot in hell (if I believed in such at thing) or at least experience hell and purgatory on earth. Bikes bring people happiness, and when you steal bikes, you steal people’s joy. Take those bikes back to Mitchell’s shop now.
Okay, on to the forecast.
People keep asking me when we set the clocks ahead. That doesn’t have much to do with weather, but it does have a lot to do if you get to play after work (assuming you’re not one of my got-their-priorities straight friends with a flexible schedule). We spring ahead at 2am on March 13th this year. That’s just a week away… you are one week from mountain biking and road riding and kayaking after work!
But I am sure you want to know what you’re doing between now and then, right? Well, you’re going storm skiing, unless you’re going today. Today looks mellow on the hill, with snow levels around 1000’. This morning looks clear, but clouds will move in midday, with flurries starting around 1pm. Total accumulation will be less than 1” of snow. Winds will be NW 20-30 early, going to SW 15-25 by 4pm as the warm front approaches.
The snow level rises overnight tonight, hitting 4500-5000’ by tomorrow morning, but falling to 4000’ by 1pm and 3500’ by 7pm. Snow starts by 1am, becoming moderate to heavy from 4am to 4pm and becoming light overnight. Total precip will be .5-.75” for 6-9” of new snow. Winds start off SW 15-25, building to a very stormy and potentially lift-disrupting W 40-45 by 11am (sounds fun to me), holding through the day, and backing off the WSW 30-35 by 7pm.
Wednesday is turning out to be a pain to forecast. The snow level will be at 5000-5500’ Wednesday morning, rising to 6000’ by 4pm, holding for 4-6 hours and then falling to 4000’ by 4am Thursday. In addition to the borderline freezing level, it’s unclear just where the bulk of the moisture will hit. At this point, it looks like it will stay north of us, giving us around .5-.75” of water value, but a small shift in the storm’s track could send us into the 1.25-1.75” WV range. So for now, I’ll say wet snow starting around 1am, with a period of very wet snow, snain or snow mixed with rain around 4-7pm. Total accumulation will be 3-4” of slop down low and 6-9” of snow up high. Winds Wednesday will be SW 30-40 to start, going to 35-45 by 7am, building to 45-55 by 1pm and switching to WSW 45-50 by 7pm. Disruptive? Probably not, as the wind direction is going to spare the lower slopes of the ski resorts.
The snow level falls to 4000’ overnight Wednesday, hitting 4000’ by 4am Thursday, falling to 3500’ by 10am and falling further to 1500-2000’ by 7pm. Total precip Thursday will be 1-1.5” WV for 12-18” of new snow, falling in a heavy, steady manner from 4am through midnight. That sounds great, but there’s a very good chance you won’t see chairlifts running on Thursday afternoon as the upper level low associated with this system tracks straight across the middle of Washington, leaving Mt. Hood in the nasty southern side of the storm. Fresh-baked brownies or bread for the first person who emails me the technical name for the “nasty southern side of the storm.” Winds will be a tolerable SW 40-50 early, going to SW 45-55+ by 1pm, building to WSW 60-70+ by 4pm and hitting a disastrous WNW 50-55+ by 7pm. If the lifts run, it’s my kind of day. If not, it’s a Skibowl kind of night, and strangely, I already have an exchange letter for Thursday night. Funny how that works out, isn’t it? It’s great being the weather girl! 😉
Snow continues falling in some variety, depth and manner through the beginning of next week. Spring? Yeah, right.
Have a great day. See y’all on the slopes soon.
Temira
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