The Dump

One of my favorite blogs to watch, especially this time of year, is written by Cliff Mass, an Atmospheric Sciences professor at my old workplace, the University of Washington.  On February 12, Cliff predicted the formation of the famed "river of moisture" that occasionally flows straight from the tropics to us.  For those of us here in the PNW, the moisture that it brings is welcome, but for those in Oregon and even more so California, the arrival of the moisture is critical.

Ah, but for skiers, this is heaven on a stick.  This year's ski season has been disappointing.  Essentially no skiing before Christmas, and alternating periods of rain and wet snow... or nothing at all...  since.  In fact, The Dump started out with some decent snow (which we missed), followed by rain.

[At this point I think I should point out to the non-skiers that read this blog, that when it rains on the snow, it turns that snow into a solid block of ice once the temperature falls below freezing again.  The ski areas refer to this ice euphemistically as "base".  For skiers?  Well, we have to wait for more snow to cover the "base".]

Ah, but look what is coming:  This is the forecast from Stevens Pass, our chosen ski area, as of Saturday evening (sorry for the formatting problems - I didn't copy their style sheets)...

Weather Forecast

TONIGHT

ssnowy

Low:  22°F

Snow showers. Low around 22. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 22 to 29 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible.

SUNDAY

snowy

High:  26°F

Snow. High near 26. South southwest wind 16 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible.

SUNDAY NIGHT

snowy

Low:  23°F

Snow. Low around 23. Windy, with a west southwest wind 24 to 33 mph, with gusts as high as 44 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 10 to 16 inches possible.

... and like that into the foreseeable future, Cliff says. Woo HOOO!

Sadly, we will not be able to take advantage of The Dump while the snow is fresh (more on that later, related to this).

The Dump