Oregon snowpack 126% of normal, drought improvement, new normals

Salem Statesman Journal

Snow piled high after the recent winter storms on Mountain View Shelter at Maxwell Sno-Park east of Salem in the Cascade Mountains in December 2021.

The snow has piled up in Oregon's mountains over the past two weeks, bringing major improvement to a statewide snowpack that started the season in a pretty dreadful place.

In early December, Oregon's mountains were almost bare following a series of warm rain events that didn't produce much snow. By mid-December that changed in a big way and as of Dec. 29, Oregon's statewide snowpack was 126% of normal with even more mountain snow projected.

What that looks like is 62 inches of snow on Santiam Pass and over 95 inches at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. There's also plenty of snow at mid-elevation destinations, between 2,500 and 4,000 feet, such as Maxwell Sno-Park, that should bring a quality winter recreation season with lots of terrain to ski, snowshoe and snowmobile.

The amount of mountain snow falling is expected to continue increasing this winter, ideally helping alleviate some of Oregon's consistent drought, while providing strong conditions for winter recreation. .

Oregon's sno-parks and ski areas hit their stride

Tyler Dodds skis through deep snow at Maxwell Sno-Park east of Salem after heavy snow hit the mountains east of the Willamette Valley.

It took quite a lot longer than normal, but all of Oregon's ski areas are open and most of the sno-parks have more than enough snow for snowshoeing, cross-county skiing and snowmobiling.

While most COVID-19 limits like outdoor masking and closed lodges have been lifted, there are still differences at play in a few places, such as needing to buy a lift ticket online at Mount Hood Meadows and wearing masks indoors. Check details before heading up for the first time.

Sno-parks, basically plowed winter trailheads that allow access to sledding hills and marked winter trails, offer a cheaper option and cost just $25 per car for a full year. You can buy them online through the Oregon DMV.

My favorite area to visit sno-parks is on Santiam Pass (Highway 20) east of Salem, but Willamette Pass (Highway 58) east of Eugene also has good options, along with the Mount Hood area.

Must-see scenery:10 beautiful snowshoe routes near Salem

If you don't want to pay anything to get into the snow, it is possible to simply drive up a mountain roadway like Highway 22, drive above Marion Forks into higher elevations and find a pullout along snowed-over Forest Service roads to play in the snow or follow those roads on skis or snowshoes.

Secret snowshoe route:See views of snowy North Santiam River, Mount Jefferson

Finally, the snow level is low enough that many "snowy waterfalls" are in play. This includes places like Proxy Falls, Sahalie Falls and Salt Creek falls that you can visit covered in snow and ice on a snowshoe trip.

Top winter spots:7 best snowy waterfall hikes and snowshoe trips in Oregon

Snowy and cool forecast still in play

Even after the lingering cold snap that brought snow to the Willamette Valley multiple times goes away, Oregon is expected to stay in a fairly cool and wet pattern.

A winter weather advisory Thursday called for 2 to 6 inches of snow in the Cascade Foothills — for places such as Detroit — while higher pass levels were expected to see 5 to 10 inches of snow.

"It should stay all snow in the Cascades for the next week," Bryant said. "There may be brief periods when the freezing level pops up, but not too much."

Long-term weather outlook favors wetter than normal conditions in northern Oregon.

Long-term forecasts show Oregon staying in a cool and wet pattern for the next 8 to 14 days. Cooler and wetter weather is also projected for north and western Oregon through January.

Even longer-range forecasts, for the next three months, show odds tilted toward cooler and wetter conditions across much of Oregon.

Slight improvements in drought

All of that is encouraging news, especially following a historically dry summer and an ongoing drought that built up over multiple years of drier than normal conditions.

This year's precipitation has started to put a dent in Oregon's drought. In maps released by the U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday, the percentage of the state in severe drought dropped to 76% from 96% in September .

Improvements were mostly in western Oregon, along with parts of southwest Oregon, but extreme drought remains east of the Cascades after a two-year-long deficit in precipitation and reduced water tables.

The latest drought map for Oregon shows some improvement.

Oregon state climatologist Larry O'Neill said the drought map would continue to improve as Oregon's snowpack improves.

"While the snowpack looks good now, we still do have a long way to go to reach normal peak levels," he said. "In a lot of snow measuring stations, we're only 30 to 35 percent of the way there and are still wary of a prolonged dry or warm stretch that has occurred in recent years.

"If snowpack keeps growing, I think that by the beginning of February we'll start to see bigger improvements in the drought map."

What we consider a 'normal' amount of snow shifts this year

One thing that's striking about this year — 2021 and 2022 — is that it marks the first year under what meteorologists refer to as "new normals" for weather.

Basically, to figure out what an average year looks like, climatologists take 30 years of data to find the median amount of mountain snow, or snow-water equivalent, on a given date. When journalists and others refer to Oregon's snowpack being X% of normal, this is what they're referencing.

In the past decade, normals were calculated by looking at data from 1981 to 2010. But this year, that goalpost has shifted to using data from 1991 to 2020.

As a result, what we consider normal has shifted.

"The updated 30-year averages show Oregon with a slightly drier and much warmer climate," O'Neill said. "Our climate has become less like Washington state and more like California. Our winters are a bit shorter and summers are a bit longer, warmer, and drier."

The effect of this shift is that in just a year, Oregon's snowpack seems higher than it would have a year ago.

"For most stations, the new averages for snowpack are less than the previous averages, so the current maps would depict more snow than what we previously thought of as 'normal.' "

Oregon's snowpack is in healthy shape after the winter storms across the mountains.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal.

Urness is the author of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.