Boundry Trail at MSH

[RobinB]

The March 2016 pics shows plenty of snow while the 2 from February 2015 shows none at all.

2015 was an absolutely crazy low snow year - 2016 was also low, but not that low, and this one's shaping up to be a bit above average (thankfully!).

[kepPNW]

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... 4599609375

https://weather.com/weather/today/l/060301:13:US

The temps between the two can be off by as much as ten degrees, especially the day time high temps.

The first one is an interpolated "point" forecast that takes elevation into account, the second is for an indeterminate area somewhere near Mt. St. Helens. To further muddy the waters, here's the NWS zone forecast, which is helpful because it lists freezing levels: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?zoneid=WAZ019

Overall, I always trust weather.gov over weather.com. The Weather Channel doesn't have local employees who specifically know Pacific Northwest weather; the National Weather service does.

Second that. NOAA's my #1 go-to for any location out here. A few more backup references...

• VolcanoCam: offers some good hints at snow levels
• Mountain-Forecast: another reasonable datapoint
• Spirit Lake Snotel: actual conditions on the ground

The March 2016 pics shows plenty of snow while the 2 from February 2015 shows none at all.

2015 was an absolutely crazy low snow year - 2016 was also low, but not that low, and this one's shaping up to be a bit above average (thankfully!).

Yeah, we did the whole Saint Helens Lake loop in 2/15 in trail runners. Even the area by the rock arch was just fine. Crazy! This year is really just as crazy, but in the complete opposite direction.

[drm]

I've had a lot of cases of weather.gov being overly pessimistic in the last year. While my go-to weather forecast site is wunderground.com (Weather Underground), the best method is to check three different sites and see if they agree, and that indicates a greater likelihood of accuracy. While all sites at some level use the same input data, they plug that data into different computer models. When those different models are in agreement, you have a greater chance that they will be accurate. When those models/forecasts disagree significantly, then who knows what it will be. Of course, only weather.gov provides a true point forecast for remote wilderness areas, so this comparison strategy can be hard to do for some trips way out there. But for the Gorge or Mt Hood, you can get a pretty good indication.

[tbritt2112]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Looks like I came to the right place. I live in Southeast NC (Wilmington) so I dont know much about mountain weather in the PNW. I was in your neck of the woods back in 2004. Im a life long Bruce Lee fan and I made the trip to Seattle to visit his and his Son's grave site. His Son (Brandon) died here in my home town filming the Crow.

I was there in September of 2004. We made the trip down to MSH one of the days we were there. Three weeks after we returned home, MSH woke and had a few small eruptions. Im sure you all remember that. We missed seeing some volcanic activity by three weeks. Just my luck. Now, I may be there before the snow melts enough to hike the trails I would like to. I see that MSH may get 4 inches of snow Monday and Monday night. I hope that doesnt happen. Beautiful day out there today. I need more of them! Fingers crossed!

[tbritt2112]

Man scales MSH using snow kite. Looking at the ridges on this video, lots of snow up there. I dont think Im gonna be able to hike Boundary Trail May 13th.

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/snow ... 5-minutes/