Soggy Weather Forces Closure of Popular Pacific Northwest Ski Resort
Parts of the Pacific Northwest rang in the New Year with quite a bit of precipitation, but not the kind skiers want. As the ball dropped on the New Year in Pacific Time, a storm brought significant rainfall to Mt. Hood and Mt. Bachelor, Oregon.
Mt. Hood saw a wintry mix turn to rain Thursday evening, with temperatures in the mid-high 30's. Rain and wet snow have continued through Friday morning. Mt. Hood Meadows, which opened for the season on December 23, spun lifts on New Year's Day despite the bad weather.
Unfortunately, rain continued to fall into Friday morning, prompting Mt. Hood Meadows to suspend operations on January 2 in order to allow water to drain from the snowpack.
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"Due to the saturation of the snowpack and current conditions, we have made the decision to suspend operations for today, January 2.
We need to allow the water to drain from the snowpack, as operating under these conditions would cause damage and negatively impact our ability to operate in the days ahead.
Our Team worked hard overnight trying to put the mountain back together, and we appreciate those efforts, but the snowpack needs time to recover.
We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. As always, we will continue to update you as we know more. So continue to check our Conditions page and socials," read the Mt. Hood Meadows social media post.
By Saturday evening, the forecast for Mt. Hood improves a bit with temperatures closer to freezing and into the high 20s by Saturday night. Precipitation will hopefully start trending more towards snow by early Sunday morning and throughout the rest of Sunday.
Further south, Mt. Bachelor also saw rain and warmer temperatures overnight on January 1. On New Year's Day, Mt. Bachelor opened a limited amount of terrain and lifts due to a saturated snowpack.
While the snow that came just before Christmas had been holding nicely through a bit of high pressure, mountain operations opted to preserve the mountain's base and not open Bachelor's main lifts. Rain eased up going into January 2, but Mt. Bachelor made the call to continue operating on a limited footprint in order to allow the snowpack to recover.
Temperatures are expected to drop into the high 20s by Friday night, and precipitation is trending more towards snow at Mt Bachelor through Saturday evening.
Things should be back on track by Sunday, when temperatures are forecasted to be in the low 20s and dropping into Sunday evening. Precipitation should turn fully back to snow, with SLRs in the 9:1- 12:1 range throughout the day.
Much of the PNW has had a difficult, wet, and warm start to the ski season.
However, colder storms over the last several weeks and leading into Christmas helped areas like Mt. Hood Meadows and Mt. Bachelor kick off their season with pretty excellent, albeit thin, snow conditions.
The rain has no doubt been a bit of a hiccup and made staying positive a bit tough for us PNW skiers, but the forecast looks promising going into the next week, and things will hopefully keep trending better.