Ullr can once again suck the balls of everyone in the pac nw

[White Chocolate]

My faith in some snowfall this season is waning day by day

WEATHER SYNOPSIS

High pressure continues over the Pacific Northwest Friday. This
should again maintain offshore flow and easterly flow across the
Cascades with sunny weather and mild daytime temperatures. An
upper level trough is approaching the area from the north Friday
and should move across the area Saturday. However, this trough
appears to be relatively dry and should only cause a brief shift
to onshore flow and some increased clouds over the area Friday
night and Saturday with little or no precipitation expected.
Freezing levels should fall with the trough passage Saturday but
little else.

In the longer range...the ridge should rebound Sunday and beyond.
A return to a Rex block pattern with a closed low pressure center
to the south near California and a strong upper ridge to the
north. This pattern should dominate the weather for the next
week. This should again cause clear skies with light to moderate
easterly flow across the Cascades and relatively low freezing
levels through the early part of the week.

In the extended period, models are still insisting that this
stable pattern of a blocking ridge over the northwest should
persist for the next ten days.

[powder11]

bad for skiing... skied whistler today. reminded me of back east. rock hard. good for mtn biking. took a spin around yesterday with the dog. most of the trail was clear of snow/ice. got too cocky and wiped hard on an ice patch. its funny when your just riding along and wham! your laying on the ground. im thinking the snow will come in april and may. then us pnw's can post cool guy pow shots while everyone else is polishing their knobs.

[belgian]

I've given up already. Patterns show that horrible years don't follow each other so I'm already looking forward to next season. *anti-jinx*

[Samwich]

powder11: do you live here, or are you just up visiting? Wanna make some turns?

[funkendrenchman]

Hopefully the Whistler Bike Park will open early.

[ak_powder_monkey]

Hopefully the Whistler Bike Park will open early.

or it'll dump before my arrival

[Squirrel99]

Wake me up when March gets here (if and when Ullr decides to visit).

"And sunny again on Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. And, well, all the way through about March 2"

And here's the $20,000,000 question:
Will Baker, Stevens, and Crystal have enough base to weather these warm temps and sunshine?

Ullr, seriously,

[powder11]

powder11: do you live here, or are you just up visiting? Wanna make some turns?

i moved here before the monsoon hit with my g/f. id love to make some turns. we should plan on heading up on the next pow day, whenever that may be. i'll send you a pm when the forecast starts looking better. keep a-train in the loop too.

[grrrr]

Actually the long term forecast is even worse. Warmer and drier than normal now until June.

Baker will be shut down before March 15 this year.

[Jumper Bones]

Well the problem is the goddam Jet Stream is splitting...and all the moisture is going way North, or way South (LA, Tahoe, Utah). And it's a fucking persistent pattern. Plus this stoopid fucking high pressure ridge that settles in here every week...

I too was equally devastated when Steve Pool said "Long Range forecasting models don't show any precip until March 2nd". Sonufabitch!

I predict it will get massively better in about a month, though, to coincide with my leaving the NW for a couple months. As soon as I'm outta here, it'll start nuking. I swear the high pressure follows me, we had crazy high pressure issues in Bozeman when I lived there, etc etc. So maybe I'll be nice and leave a couple weeks early

[fiddler]

Well the problem is the goddam Jet Stream is splitting...and all the moisture is going way North, or way South (LA, Tahoe, Utah). And it's a fucking persistent pattern. Plus this stoopid fucking high pressure ridge that settles in here every week...

I too was equally devastated when Steve Pool said "Long Range forecasting models don't show any precip until March 2nd". Sonufabitch!

I predict it will get massively better in about a month, though, to coincide with my leaving the NW for a couple months. As soon as I'm outta here, it'll start nuking. I swear the high pressure follows me, we had crazy high pressure issues in Bozeman when I lived there, etc etc. So maybe I'll be nice and leave a couple weeks early

Maybe you should leave RIGHT NOW! I mean, maybe you could hire yourself out to communities in need of some nice pleasant dry warm weather after having way too much horrible stormy snowy weather. Thats it, a new career for you, taking high pressure to places that need it! On your days off you could put on a disguise and sneak back for some skiing.

Well, last Tuesday it was good at Baker but then it warmed up and I should be skiing now but I'm sitting here. Shite. Tomorrow I'm going back up to check out the current freeze thaw deal.

[FreakofSnow]

Montucky is in the same boat, we have not had winter at all. They are reporting 40-50% snowpacks in Western MT. Lolo Pass for example should usually have 6 FEET of pack at this time, instead it has a meager 18". WTF???? .

I too am holding out for big spring dumps, it can't be this bad the whole year [/denial & anti-jinx]. March and April are typically big bad wet huge dumpage times.

Come on Ullr, throw us a freaking bone here!

[Jumper Bones]

I'm hoping too - I'm driving down to Oklahoma for a couple months, and plan on swinging through Bozeman for a couple days mid- to late-March.

[Jumper Bones]

Sunshine Is Nice, But We Need A Big Storm

February 18, 2005

By Theron Zahn



SEATTLE - Friday was another beautiful day in Western Washington.

"It's the best, it's the nicest gift," said Heather Blahouse, "the nicest February gift."

But this gift of sunshine could come with a steep price later.

"If we don't get significant snow during the next month we are going to have a big problem," said Prof. Cliff Mass from the University of Washington

KOMO's helicopter, Air 4, shot video Friday of the pitiful snowpack in the Cascades. While the pictures are dramatic, the numbers are even more sobering.

Right now the snowpack at Mount Baker is just 27 percent of normal. It's a little bit better at Stevens Pass at 44 percent of normal.

Snoqualmie has only 30 percent, but the real shocker is at White Pass, with only 14 percent of the usual snowpack at this time.

That means we'd better get some very big storms, very soon.

"Because once you get past late March it becomes pretty much impossible to make up a significant portion of the snowpack," said Professor Mass

If we don't get our snowpack back, this could be a summer with high fire danger and parched land like we haven't seen since 1977. Right now it doesn't look good.

"I've been looking at forecast models for the whole winter and this is the most extraordinarily persistent pattern I have seen in many, many years," said Mass. "The flow is coming off the Pacific and then splitting. Some of it going up into Alaska and some if it going into California."

[Stikki]

What's happened to our somewhat stable and consistent weather? In the last few years our highs have been record highs ('98/99) and our lows have been record lows ('04/05).

Manic depression here we come.

[optics]

As soon as I'm outta here, it'll start nuking.

Not if I'm still here.

What did I tell you, I left for NY on Sat. last week and look what happened. You can literally track the few storms we've had this year with my being out of town.

I apologize to everyone, and I'm trying to arrange to travel as much as I can for the rest of the winter.

[Schralper]

This is just a test to find out those really into skiing, no matter what and who's a whiner.


BTW- ULLR hates whiners!

[Jumper Bones]

yeah? stick it.


does Ullr hate grumps too?

[Squirrel99]

This is just a test to find out those really into skiing, no matter what and who's a whiner.


BTW- ULLR hates whiners!

It's a little bit easier to say that when Bachelor actually has a base, whereas all the WA areas are about to shut her down for good in the next week or so

and forecast for the next 7 days has Seattle approaching 60 degrees and sunshine.

[Schralper]

Well YEAH! But still doing the road trip thing. I feel your pain, though.

[girlski0912]

I am past the point of hoping. Next season will rock and in the meantime, I am riding my bike and planning my road trip to Tahoe in 3 weeks. Was planning on taking my NON SKIING BOY skiing at Hood on Sunday. THEY ARE CHARGING 50 FUCKING DOLLARS TO SKI HOOD MEADOWS. No offense to the Hood mags, but I think i would be hard pressed to pay that much for Hood on a good day, let alone a 30 inch base. We bagged the skiing thing and went hiking instead. The positive side is that got me out of taking the NON SKIING BOY skiing (that in and of itself was a small personal victory for me...not to self...in the future don't date NON SKIING BOYS!!!!!!!!) And then yesterday we went mountain biking. This winter is so fucked up...

[KQ]

Weather's been so gosh darn nice they are looking at opening the North Cascades Highway early...........

North Cascades Highway could reopen early

By Christopher Schwarzen
Seattle Times staff reporter


This time of year at Winthrop's Three Fingered Jack's Saloon, it's the patrons that are slim pickings, not the food.

That may be about to change. Monday, the Department of Transportation will begin punching through the snowpack on the North Cascades Highway, a job that could take only a couple of weeks this year.

If the mild winter weather continues, the state may enjoy the earliest reopening of Highway 20 on record, said Jeff Adamson, a Washington Department of Transportation spokesman.

Two other Cascade passes — Chinook and Cayuse — remain closed but also may open early given the unusually skimpy mountain snowpack.

The highway was built in the early 1970s as a northern pass across the Cascades. Each winter, except one, Highway 20 has been closed due to extreme avalanche hazards and snow piles that can measure more than 70 feet deep.

When it's closed, the tourist towns of Mazama and Winthrop suffer under the weight of all that snow.

"It's pretty thin up here when they close it," said Mike Clayton, owner of Three Fingered Jack's Saloon. "When they do open it, it's like turning on the faucet."

That makes places like the Mazama Store eager to return the summer gear to the mercantile's shelves as quickly as possible.

"We still get good crowds here during the winter, but in the summer, it's really busy," store owner Jennifer Gode said.

She and her husband, who have run the store for 10 years, have seen some strange weather patterns, but this year may have topped the list.


Wild temperature swing

An early January thaw saw temperatures rise from 18 below zero to 60 degrees in just a couple of days.
"Blocks of melting ice were floating down the Methow River," Gode said.

In addition to being a tourism draw, Highway 20 serves commercial purposes, Adamson said. Gasoline tankers from Anacortes use it to supply northeast Washington communities.

When the road is closed, as it has been since Dec. 13, truckers must travel south on Interstate 5 and cross over using Highway 2. The additional mileage can increase gas prices, Adamson said.

"As soon as they can pass over the North Cascades Highway, it cuts a lot of expense."

The state will begin clearing snow Monday at the Silver Star Gate closure, 14 miles west of Mazama, using a Kodiak snowblower, a snow cat, a pair of large front-end loaders, a road grader and several snowplow trucks. Crews will be working four days a week from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

An assessment by the state DOT's avalanche-control team found only four snow slides covering the roadway, out of 11 possible locations.

Slides below Liberty Bell Mountain's avalanche chutes, east of Washington Pass, are only a dozen feet deep, compared with 70 feet deep in past years.

Much of the roadway has less than a foot of snow covering it, Adamson said. Seven to nine feet are typical this time of year.

The latest opening on record was June 14, 1974.


Cross-country destination

While some see the highway's closure as an inconvenience, to others, the snowfall is another excuse to find any route across the mountains. At the Freestone Inn & Cabins, the winter season is still a draw, said Lisa Osterloh, one of the facility's managers.

"Typically, the busiest season is summer, but people enjoy the fact that we have cross-country ski trails," Osterloh said. "They're more than willing to make the trek around."

The Methow Valley Sport Trails Association's Web site, www.mvsta.com, reports ski conditions "holding up very well," with total snow accumulation of 4 to 10 inches.

If you're a new transplant from Seattle, as Osterloh is, there's one other plus to having a road closed about three or four months out of the year.

"There's no traffic," she said.

[powder11]

The positive side is that got me out of taking the NON SKIING BOY skiing (that in and of itself was a small personal victory for me...not to self...in the future don't date NON SKIING BOYS!!!!!!!!)

you bring up an interesting point here. is it better to date non-skiing significant others or ones that ski? usually there is a weird dynamic with significant others who fancy themselves as good skiers because they soon realize that your better than they are and they get all put off. ive never dated a girl who skis better than me, but im starting to think having your significant other waiting back at the chalet is a better scenario. has anyone else had this problem?

edit: if it were dumping, these thoughts would never have crossed my mind and i wouldn't really care either way.

[girlski0912]

you bring up an interesting point here. is it better to date non-skiing significant others or ones that ski? usually there is a weird dynamic with significant others who fancy themselves as good skiers because they soon realize that your better than they are and they get all put off. ive never dated a girl who skis better than me, but im starting to think having your significant other waiting back at the chalet is a better scenario. has anyone else had this problem?

edit: if it were dumping, these thoughts would never have crossed my mind and i wouldn't really care either way.

Total hyjak...my bad...Powder11, this quandry is the cause for my confusion at this point. The ONLY flaw that I can find with said NON SKIING BOY is that he doesn't ski...and he doesn't live here but is ready to rectify that small detail and move to Seattle to be with me...BUT HE DOESN'T SKI!!!! Am I being shallow????? I may be dedicating a thread to this issue...

[KQ]

Total hyjak...my bad...Powder11, this quandry is the cause for my confusion at this point. The ONLY flaw that I can find with said NON SKIING BOY is that he doesn't ski...and he doesn't live here but is ready to rectify that small detail and move to Seattle to be with me...BUT HE DOESN'T SKI!!!! Am I being shallow????? I may be dedicating a thread to this issue...

No - DON'T LET HIM MOVE HERE - it will only make it worse and it’ll be harder down the line when skiing comes between you two (this of course is based on my limited knowledge of what your situation is – perhaps he doesn’t care if you ski). HOWEVER, if the PNW is headed for fewer and far between snow filled winters as the UW is predicting it may all be a moot point. That said, I feel, if you're truly a skiing girl, no non-skiing boys!