Powder potential in the west, but low confidence

US and Canada Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest US and Canada Daily Snow

By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 4 years ago March 5, 2020

Summary

Thanks to significant snow during January and February, the Northwest has caught and exceeded the average snowpack for this date. Looking ahead, storms will continue to bring snow to all of North America, but it’s not yet clear where the deepest snow will fall.

Short Term Forecast

Catch Up!

This season started with little snow and low morale in the Northwest. But then the atmosphere delivered the goods in January and February. The chart below shows the snowpack for Mt. Baker in northern Washington State where the black line is the 30-year average snowpack and the orange line is what has happened so far this season. Better late than never!

Forecast for Thu, Mar 5 – Fri, Mar 6

Much of the west will end this week with dry, sunny, and warm weather. The two areas of potential powder will be over British Columbia and also over the Upper Midwest and Northeast. The western storm will be potent while the eastern storm will likely provide just light snow and then track out to sea.

Forecast for Sat, Mar 7 – Sun, Mar 8

While the eastern storm tracks out to sea on Saturday and will likely just miss bringing heavy snow to the Northeast, we’ll see a storm over the West Coast that will split as it moves inland. This storm could bring decent snow amounts, but splitting storms lead to low-confidence forecasts, so it’s hard for me to say that there will be deep powder at any specific region.

Forecast for Mon, Mar 9 – Tue, Mar 10

The low-confidence forecast will continue into early next week. The model below shows a chance for powder on Monday and Tuesday from California to Utah to northern Colorado. However, other models show little or no snow for these areas. Despite the fact that weather forecast accuracy has improved greatly in the past few decades, when models disagree this drastically, it is nearly impossible to know which model (or if any model) will wind up being correct. Fingers crossed for powder!

Extended Forecast

Outlook for Wed, Mar 11 – Sun, Mar 15

The long-range outlook has not changed much over the past few days. All models continue to show the main area of storminess hanging just off the West Coast. Odds are pretty high that some areas of the coast and the western US and Canada will see significant snow, and I am hopeful that one of these areas will be California where they need to make up some ground following a dry February (though a storm on March 1st has already helped with 5-14 inches of snow).