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The Forecast
| 4a-8a | 8a-12p | 12p-4p | 4p-8p | 8p-4a | |
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| Tuesday 1500′->2500′->1500′ |
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| Wednesday 1500′->4500′->7500′ |
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| Thursday 7500′->4000′ |
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Mt. Hood Weather Forecast
So much snow has fallen in the last 24 hours that Highway 26 and 35 both ended up closed. Due to the road conditions and also due to massive snowfall, Meadows and Timberline are closed today. Skibowl will update by 10am on their operations for tonight. Teacup groomer posted that he is grooming daily “attempting to pack this down”. So, let’s look at what we’ve got this week – lots of incoming snow followed by rain and then more snow. Hi, La Nina!
Tuesday’s forecast is for heavy snowfall all day and night with added help from orographics. The effective snow level (it’s snowing in the Gorge right now) will be 1500-2000′ this morning, 3000-4000′ this afternoon, and 1500-2000′ overnight. About 0.8” water equivalent (WE) is forecast today, for 9-11” decent quality snow. Another 0.5” WE is forecast tonight for 5-7” more. Add 30-40% more thanks to westerly wind: 35mph this morning and 25-30 mph from early afternoon on through the night.
More snow is on the way for Wednesday, but then we run into warmer weather and rain overnight. The snow level will be 2000′ or so in the morning and will rise to 4500′ in the afternoon. Overnight, it rises to about 7000′ The snow should switch to rain a few hours after sunset. 0.8” WE is predicted to come in as snow, for 5-7” increasingly dense, wet snow. Overnight, we have a prediction of about an inch of rain. Wind: W 30 early turns to SW 15-30 ahead of the front mid-morning. The wind steadily rises through the evening and lands at SW 40-60 just before the front hits in the wee hours of the morning.
Thursday starts off with moderate to heavy rain and very strong wind. The snow level will be 7000-7500′ in the morning, 6000′ in the afternoon, 5000′ late evening, and 4000′ after midnight. These precip totals sound low to me; I suspect they’ll adjust upwards. For now, the GFS calls for 1.0” rain during the day followed by 1.1” WE starting as rain ans switching to snow overnight. 4-8” snow after the rain transitions. Let’s double the daytime rain due to very strong orographics. Wind will b e SW 40-60 early and will quickly turn to W 65, at which point you can kiss all the lifts goodbye and also get worried about falling trees. Stay off the passes. The wind holds until the afternoon when it turns to WSW 45-55 and then fades to SW 20-35 in the evening and overnight.
The snow level bounces around between 4000′ and 6000′ on Friday before crashing to 500′ in the evening. Rain during the day gives way to snow and extremely blizzard conditions in the evening. We’ll go into more detail as we get closer. Lingering snow flurries Saturday give way to dry weather Sunday. Very dynamic weather this week, for sure!
Note on wind speeds. Different wind directions are experienced in different ways on Mt. Hood. For example, west wind at 50mph will hit the slopes and exposed ridges at W 50. SW 50 may hit the ridges at SW 50, but will likely only be SW 20 below tree line. Hence the ranges for wind. Depends where you are on the mountain. Hopefully that helps clarify.
Gorge Wind Forecast
Light and variable wind this morning turns westerly at 13-16 for a short period mid morning and then turns light easterly in the afternoon. River flow is 122kcfs, river temp is 37F, and high temp forecast is 35F. Wednesday starts with W 20-25 near Stevenson. The wind may pick up to W 10ish through the Gorge midday. It’ll go calm midday and flip around to E 10-20 in the afternoon. Thursday starts with E 30-40 at Rooster and Stevenson. The wind drops to E 10-15 at Stevenson and turns strong westerly at Rooster. Calm wind starts the day on Friday. Nuking westerlies are forecast in the afternoon.
Coast, Jones, Coast
Done until spring, unless there’s an obvious Coast or Sauvie’s or Jones day.
Hood River Weather Forecast
Rain with intermittent snowflakes is the story for today. Temps will be in the low-mid 30’s early and mid 30’s later. Light westerlies turn light easterly. 4% chance of rainbows. Wednesday will be rainy and then very rain and then perhaps switches to freezing rain overnight. Temps will be in the mid 30’s early and will fall to upper 20’s or low 30’s overnight. Light westerlies turn easterly in the afternoon. 2% chance of rainbows. Thursday will be very, very rainy in the morning and then rainy in the afternoon. Temps will be in the upper 20’s early and mid 30’s later. Easterlies early. Calm wind later. 1% chance of rainbows.
Looking for a complete Columbia Gorge forecast? Looking for more humor in your weather? Obscenities? You’re looking for my TATAS: Temira’s Awesome Travel Advisory Service on Facebook.
Cycling
FREEZE-THAW ALERT: if you notice that temps were below freezing last night and will be above freezing today, don’t ride any trail that’s not under a tree canopy. If you do so, you WILL do significant damage. DON’T DO IT! Plentiful rain recently means most tree-covered trails are muddy. Please don’t ride them either. If you do, you’ll be doing significant and possibly permanent damage. No really, please don’t. There are lots of gravel roads and lots of pavement you can ride instead. Enjoy!
Local Events
Please let me know about events. I often only hear about them if you folx let me know!
Ferment’s Tuesday night 4-mile walk/run is back. Meet there at 6pm. At 7:15am on Wednesdays, there’s a run from the White Salmon Bakery. There’s a night-lit shop mountain bike ride at Syncline on Tuesday evenings at 5:45pm.
Sprinter Van of the Week!
Click here for the Sprinter Van map of the world!!!
Have an awesome day!
