Tag: ski

Good morning!

This is turning into a weather forecast more than a wind forecast.

For example, it’s going to rain today, with over a foot of snow above 6000 feet. Combine that with strong winds, and you have a recipe for a real mess up on the Palmer Glacier. Don’t count on skiing the pow at Timberline today, but keep an eye on Sunday for a break in the weather with plenty of new snow.

Snow levels drop to 4500 feet or so after this system passes today, giving us 8-12”+ at T-line and Meadows on Friday. For what it’s worth, Julia Ruthford over at NOAA is calling for 2-3 feet Friday night into Saturday. I like that better. A few more inches on Sunday tops off the storm cycle, and with snow levels around 3000 feet, T-line, Skibowl and Meadows will all see new snow!

Wind… right… you want the wind forecast. It’s the coast for mega south winds today for speedsailing and the Gorge for gusty low-twenties westerlies tomorrow. Saturday looks cold, with continued gusty west winds of the miserably cold and wet variety.

In other exciting weather news, a monster swell from a monster storm system (950mb or so) hits the Oregon coast tomorrow. 28 foot waves at 16 seconds means 50 foot faces somewhere. If you have a death wish, feel free to try sailing the 20-25 knot coast southerlies at Nelscott on Friday. I, for one, will skip it.

Coming up this weekend is Portland Ski Fever, where you can torment your favorite Meadows employees (Paul Jones, Dave Tragethon, and me, among others) and buy cool stuff. You can also get your pass picture taken with a large purple monkey (just kidding about the monkey, but you can see his picture on my Facebook page).

I said goodbye to Post Canyon yesterday. I think the mud takes over from now on out. See you in the spring, Seven Streams. I’ll miss you!

See the rest of you on the mountain soon (hopefully!)

Good morning,

Yesterday’s east winds went from nothing to nuking in about 4 hours. It was cool to see, except for the fact that I was driving past Rooster to a meeting in Portland with no gear in my car.

The meeting was with Meadows, and the result is that I will be the early snowphone again this year. So, this is your chance to learn the secret code. The secret code is (drumroll)… no secret code! If the phone says rain, it’s rain (may I never say it), and if it says snow, it’s snow (may I say it every day). Quite frankly, I don’t have the brainpower at 5am to do even and odd numbers, so I just tell it like it is. No, seriously, THEY (hee, hee) really do want you to know what’s actually happening up there. They want you happy and covered in powder, not dripping wet and freezing cold! If you can help them, and me, by making sacrifices to your favorite snow god, that would be great!

Speaking of snow, we’re looking at torrential rain tomorrow, but we’re looking at snow on the mountain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think we’ll see a total of a foot or so in this storm cycle. That’s not quite enough to open the hill, but it’s enough for you to go out and bust up your rock skis with some hiking this weekend.

If you’d like wind, you’ll have strong easterlies this morning, driven by a .23 gradient (whoa!) as well as building southerlies on the coast (driven by a 986mb storm). Tomorrow, however, looks like a south wind nuker on the coast, with gusts over 60.

I’m not convinced yet that we’ll see Gorge winds on Thursday and Friday, but if we do, it’s going to be southerly enough that it’s Arlington or nothing. I think we have a better chance on Friday.

In the mountain bike world, everything is good now. Get it today before it rains tomorrow. See you at Post!

And get ready for two events: Every Day’s a Saturday plays in Govy on Friday. Sickest ski movie ever. Also on Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) is Portland ski fever. Go get your pass picture taken already!

Have a great Wednesday!

Temira