2016 Snow Level Thread

arundodonax · Post by **arundodonax** » July 8th, 2015, 8:22 pm

As this relates to the 2016 snowpack, I thought I'd get us going early! Christmas in July!

They're calling for a "jurassic" El Niño this year!

See:

https://twitter.com/EricBlake12/status/ ... 6185103360

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/de ... /enso-blog

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/20 ... ed-to-know

http://www.ktvn.com/story/29506246/el-n ... nto-winter

Rather B Hiking · Post by **Rather B Hiking** » July 15th, 2015, 2:17 pm

For the weather geeks in the crowd, there is a lot of info about El Nino Southern Oscillation events at the Climate Prediction Center.

BurnsideBob · Post by **BurnsideBob** » July 28th, 2015, 10:46 am

More ENSO info:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/a ... ts-web.pdf

With a link on last page to even more info. This page is updated frequently--the current iteration is dated 27 July 2015.

My son thinks we are in for a good winter, but IIRC, some of the lowest snowfall winters we've had over the past 30 were El Nino winters. The explanation given at the time was that in an El Nino winter, NW Oregon is in the transition zone between enhanced and subnormal precip. It follows, then, that the existence of an El Nino state isn't predictive either way for snowfall in our area.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation, "MJO", can have more influence short term on our winter weather. That said, the MJO is least influential during the peak of an El Nino event. A discussion/explanation of the MJO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden%E2 ... scillation

Personally, I'm hoping for a return to "normal" winter conditions, but a strong El Nino suggests the winter won't be normal at all--at best, warmer and wetter, and, at worst, warmer and dryer, than average.

sgyoung · Post by **sgyoung** » July 28th, 2015, 3:11 pm

Some relatively low-elevation snow just fell in Montana and Wyoming, but looks to be sandwiched between warm spells.

Also, for those interesting in ENSO, the weatherwest blog is a good source, albeit focused on CA weather.

romann · Post by **romann** » August 30th, 2015, 12:48 pm

OK it right about time

(what a crazy summer, I know)

Snow in the Goat Rocks this afternoon, and about an inch more on Wednesday.

Derwood · Post by **Derwood** » August 30th, 2015, 3:35 pm

There was an 1-2 inches on top of St. Helens this morning. Probably more after this afternoon.

weekend_warrior · Post by **weekend_warrior** » November 20th, 2015, 1:02 pm

any first hand updates? probably going to get out on Sunday, snow level looks to be around 4k?

retired jerry · Post by **retired jerry** » November 20th, 2015, 1:23 pm

http://tripcheck.com/Pages/RCmap.asp?cu ... onditions#

trip check shows no snow on highway but snow on ground at government camp 4000 feet

retired jerry · Post by **retired jerry** » November 20th, 2015, 1:24 pm

and 8 inches roadside snow

pdxgene · Post by **pdxgene** » November 20th, 2015, 1:25 pm

weekend_warrior wrote:any first hand updates? probably going to get out on Sunday, snow level looks to be around 4k?

Santiam Pass looks completely free of snow on the Tripcheck camera. The Hoodoo cams look pretty sparse too.

Oregon Hikers