Above average early-season snowpack brings thrills

Photo by Bill Bartlett

Skiers at Hoodoo are welcoming early and substantial snowfall.

The Upper Deschutes Basin on which Ski Hoodoo and Sisters Country Sno-Parks sit is delighting winter recreationalists with a 161 percent average snowpack as of Friday morning, December 20. At the Three Creeks Meadow station it's a healthy 122 percent, a scenario repeated throughout nearly all of Oregon.

Early storms have piled up snow at ski resorts. Ski Hoodoo, which did not open until January 9 last season, is running full-bore. Open since November 29, the popular resort has booked 103 inches since the start of the October 1 snow year, and on Friday was at a 45-inch base.

Nearby Mt. Bachelor, much higher in elevation, is enthralling patrons with a 69-inch base. They have already received 153 inches for the season, seven of which came in a three-day period last week.

Destination skiers to Mt. Hood are seeing a 132 percent pack.

The John Day basin is at a sterling 211 percent count and the Malheur Basin is posting 239 percent of average. The Klamath Basin is recording 210 percent, very good news for its farmers and ranchers who have struggled with drought for much of the last five years.

In Sisters Country, early snowpack like this bodes well for the vital water needed for the summer.

The critical measurement of snow water equivalent is impressive. Friday, at the 5,690 ft. Three Creeks Meadow station, it stood at 5.6 inches, five times for the same date last year when it was a measly 1.1 inches.

The water has reduced Deschutes County from a D2 (severe) drought status to D1 (moderate) with expectations that the drought could disappear altogether with more rainy days like the ones we've seen during this La Nina cycle.

"Snowpack is still looking very good across Oregon for this time of year," Larry O'Neill, an assistant professor at Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science told media.

O'Neill said Pacific Ocean temperatures are currently lower than normal, which could be what is driving the wet and cool winter in the Pacific Northwest. A weak La Niña has a 59 percent probability of forming within the next two months.

"It is essentially a coin flip," he said. "La Niñas favor slightly wetter and cooler weather, and a slightly larger than normal mountain snowpack," he added.

Social media is abuzz with live reports from skiers, snow boarders, fat tire cyclists, and snowshoers posting from Sisters Country. Conditions aren't perfect. Many, while happy about the depth of snow, are bemoaning how wet it is.

Bern Hastings and his partner, Marsha Regan, were all smiles Thursday as they played at Hoodoo with a group of friends from Eugene.

"Yeah, it's a little wet, a bit sticky, but last year we were only dreaming of skiing," Hastings said.

Dawn Gleason and a group of six from Springfield were gliding on their Nordic skis at the Ray Benson Sno-Park, all toasting the season's good start and looking forward to an afternoon in Sisters for some last-minute shopping.

"That assumes we get out of the pub," Gleason said.