Where did Old Man Winter go?

Is Old Man Winter getting senile?

After an uneventful and quite dry November, the elderly gentleman responsible for the coldest season of the year began to focus on the task at hand.

On December 1, a snappy little storm blew through Central Oregon, toppling trees onto structures, blocking roads and causing scattered power outages. Two days later a 3-to-5-inch snowfall blanketed Sisters Country followed by an intense blast of arctic air from the far north.

The 10-day cold spell was not a particularly long one, but it was of high quality. On the morning of December 8, a new all-time low temperature mark at Lakeview was established when the mercury dipped to minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same morning Sisters equaled its low temperature record of minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit, which was recorded on three other occasions going back to 1958.

The coldest spot in Oregon was minus 41 degrees Fahrenheit at a station near Brothers, a testament to just how tight a grip the frigid air had throughout the region.

But the cold weather is gone now - and, seemingly, so is winter. Has our hoary weather sage lost his concentration or has he just decided to take some time off? Either way, his inactivity is causing some degree of anxiety at ski resorts here in Central Oregon.

The paltry Central Oregon Cascade snowpack is currently at levels not seen in over 20 years. Hoodoo Ski Resort has not yet been able to open for the winter season. On December 26 there was only eight inches of snow on the ground at Hoodoo, according to General Manager Matthew McFarland.

"We need a base of somewhere between 30 and 40 inches of snow to open, 24 to 30 inches if the snow is wet and dense," said McFarland. "Normally we have a 60-inch base at this time."

Conditions are somewhat better at Mount Bachelor.

"Currently we have 27 inches of snow at our base area and 39 inches at the mid-mountain level," said Andy Goggins, director of marketing.

The ski resort has the ability to artificially make snow and is currently open for business seven days a week. But even here the snowpack is only about 30 percent of normal.

Why has winter started out so dry?

Weather regimes are determined by the configuration of the winds aloft. Troughs produce cooler and usually wetter conditions while ridges result in warmer and drier weather. Frequent storms occur when the jet stream is nearby and blows from a generally westerly direction.

For the past two months the region has been "stuck" in a pattern that wants to maintain a blocking ridge just off the west coast of North America. This feature has deflected moisture-laden storms far to the north into Canada and Alaska, or greatly weakened them as they try to break through the ridge. Our dry weather will continue until there is a fundamental change in this pattern.

Forecasters review daily weather models that depict the locations of ridges, troughs and the jet stream from 10 days to two weeks into the future. The models currently indicate that by the end of the first week in January the blocking ridge may shift westward a bit and amplify, briefly allowing for colder and somewhat wetter weather to affect the Pacific Northwest. But this does not open the door to a succession of Pacific storms into our area.

For that to happen, the ridge needs to collapse or reposition itself much farther to the west or to the east.

Meanwhile, everyone from skiers and snowshoers to farmers and ranchers are hoping Old Man Winter gets back on the job soon.