Snowpack in the Oregon mountains remains well under normal amounts, according to the latest data from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Percentages of normal around the state vary from 22% in the southeastern corner to 28% in the northeast, with much of the state falling around one-third of normal.
Cameron Greenwood, a hydrologist with the Oregon Water Resources Department, said the lack of snowpack has come due to snow droughts, and he noted that the state has experienced both warm snow drought and dry snow drought this fall and winter.
"Because of these persistent warm and dry conditions that have coupled together, we just haven’t seen any sort of recovery of our snowpack thus far into our water year,” said Greenwood. “Recently we had some good precipitation that brought some snowpack to the region, a little bit of an increase recently, but we’re still in that well-below-normal territory."
Warm and dry conditions through the winter have caused problems for area ski resorts. Several have alternated between open and closed due to a lack of snow or other adverse conditions.
Hoodoo Ski Area shut down for nearly two weeks due to the warm weather, and Willamette Pass has temporarily closed multiple times this winter.
Willamette Pass’ social media accounts say that a decision regarding the coming weekend will be made Thursday afternoon.
Other ski areas around the state have dealt with similar issues.
Greenwood said modeling shows it is unlikely that conditions will improve enough to bring snowpack back to normal in the remaining months where snow is typical.
He said conditions would likely need to be in the 90th percentile or better for that to occur, which has about a one-in-ten chance of happening.
