Winter weather finally arrives in Sisters

Hoodoo Mountain Resort got enough snow to open. photo by Hadley McCann It took its time getting here and it didn't exactly come in with a bang, but winter finally arrived in Sisters last weekend.

Flurries of snow fell over the area on Friday and Saturday, with a decent snowfall coming down on Sunday -- just in time to create nasty conditions for drivers headed west over Santiam Pass.

Sisters Ranger District reported three inches of new snow over the weekend.

Hoodoo Mountain Resort opened on Friday, December 31, after more than a month of anxiously watching mostly dry skies.

Hoodoo wasn't the only outfit happy to see snow. Cheryl Rhea, who is race coordinator for the Atta Boy 300 World Sled Dog Championship Race, expressed some relief.

"We're very happy to see the snow," she said. The race kicks off on January 5 and two stages are scheduled in Sisters for January 10-11, one at Hoodoo and one in the Three Creek area (see story, page 8).

They're saying that a couple of feet of base is good," Rhea said.

They'll have it, but just barely.

Hoodoo's website reports a snow depth of 24.3 inches in the area.

Average snow depth in the area for this time of year is approximately 61 inches.

The dearth of snow is a region-wide problem. Snowpack on Mt. Hood was reported to be only 21 percent of average, according to the Associated Press.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Water and Climate Center notes that "snowpacks in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and the east slopes of the northern Rockies are significantly below average."

"It could definitely be better," said Deschutes County Watermaster Jeremy Giffin. "We're at 65 percent of normal (precipitation), which is terrible."

According to Giffin, the Santiam Pass area is particularly dry, with a snow-water equivalent of 4.8 inches, compared to an average for this time of year of 17.8 inches.

"The Santiam Pass area has been kind of lagging behind the whole basin,"Giffin said.

The Three Creek area is a little better off, with 5.4 inches of snow-water content compared to 8.7 normally.

The short snowpack doesn't bode well for irrigators, especially in the Sisters country, where there is no reservoir capacity and irrigators rely on runoff.

"I have my fingers crossed that we're not going to keep on this same path," Giffin said.

"It doesn't look too good."

However, the watermaster noted, it is still relatively early in the season and things could change.

"We could easily have a turnaround," he said, noting that one really good storm could push the precipitation totals back up to 100 percent of average.