Northwest Daily Snow
By Larry Schick, Forecaster Posted 5 years ago November 15, 2018
Is there any hope for Thanksgiving holiday skiing ?
Summary
After a weak weather system moves through on Thursday and Friday, high pressure will build in for several days. The high pressure will divert the storm track north and east, and produce mainly dry weather with little or no snowfall in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest in the days before Thanksgiving.
Short Term Forecast
Significant snowfall before Thanksgiving is very unlikely. Really, it’s not going to happen. The total snowfall for Thursday and Friday will be fairly light in the 1-5” range with the snow levels 4,500-6,000ft. There might be more snowfall at Whistler, but not enough for a lot of runs to open for Thanksgiving. They do have snowmaking and natural snow, but limited. Expect, maybe, a few lifts spinning and a few runs open to the Thanksgiving weekend.
High pressure will build in for the weekend and into next week, producing a pattern of little or no snow. See above 500 millibar airflow (18,000ft) directing storms away from us and into the Rockies.
Extended Forecast
The models have been hinting at a more active weather pattern toward Thanksgiving and the subsequent weekend. I’ve been hanging onto a thread of hope all month. The models have been hinting at “something” most of November, then always backing away as we get closer to the target “promised snowfall”. Usually leaving us with little or no snow. I was holding out hope for Thanksgiving, but recent model runs have weakened the forecasted storminess, so my confidence is low for significant snow for the holiday. There will be some snow, but not as much as we need.
Larry Schick - meteorologist
OpenSnow NW