Oregon's snowpack shows huge improvement from year ago

What a difference a year makes.

At this time last year, ski areas were closed or struggling to stay open, ski shops were losing money and hydrologists were predicting doom for the coming summer due to a historically low snowpack in Oregon’s mountains.

Fast-forward to today, and almost everything has changed.

Oregon’s snowpack is at or above normal throughout the state, with a weekend storm expected to drop an additional 5 to 10 inches in the Cascade Range.

As a result, Western Oregon is no longer in a drought, ski areas have remained open since mid-December and there’s hope for a more normal Pacific Northwest summer.

"It has been a pleasant surprise," said Kathie Dello, associated director of the Oregon Climate Change Institute at Oregon State University. "Coming into an El Niño, we were expecting warmer than average temperatures. But we've been lucky enough to get those cold storms that have dumped a lot of snow."

That wasn't the case a year ago, when a large mass of warm water in the Pacific Ocean known as "The Blob" kept temperatures high, turning most of Oregon's precipitation into rain instead of snow.

At this time last year, the Central Cascades had a snowpack just 16 percent of normal. Today, the same area is at 102 percent.

Central Oregon was 28 percent of normal a year ago and Southern Oregon was at 17 percent. Those two areas are now 117 and 143 percent of normal, respectively.

Eastern Oregon, the hardest hit region in the state the last two years, has rebounded to a snowpack 153 to 117 percent of normal.

The turnaround is somewhat surprising, given that forecasters predicted a drier winter with below average snowpack in the northwest due to the El Niño weather pattern.

"El Niño has the biggest impact in January, February and March, and we have dried out a bit and seen the warmer temperatures you would expect,"  Dello said. "What made this year abnormal was the amount of precipitation we got in December."

February and March are expected to see above-average temperatures, meaning the snowpack might not grow much above its current level.

"I think we'll be OK," Dello said. "Forecast models are showing a good runoff season for spring and summer. I don't think there's much doubt we'll have a much better summer than last year."

Zach Urness has been an outdoors writer, photographer and videographer in Oregon for eight years. He is the author of the book “Hiking Southern Oregon” and can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Facebook at Zach Urness or @ZachsORoutdoors on Twitter.