Greetings and welcome to our new NWAC blog! We hope to use this space to convey information that just doesn't fit in the scope of our regular forecast products.
We had a good go at getting winter off the ground last weekend with the arrival of a solid 1-3 feet of snow throughout the region. However, this has been thwarted by the many inches of rain currently pounding the mountains. It's looking like the main water hose will gradually shift northward over the next day, with a few more warmish systems coming in through Friday.
This shouldn't add much accumulation of fresh snow, except in areas mostly above the crest level (volcanoes). This should be followed by a cold upper trough late Friday into the weekend, combining with strong easterly surface flow from strong high pressure expected to build across southern B.C. This weather pattern unfortunately is not indicated to accompany much moisture, just sub-freezing air. This should leave the PNW mountains blanketed with a nice sheet of ice by Saturday.
The forecast team has been feverishly taking advantage of the low snow amounts to repair and maintain several of the remote weather stations normally inaccessible by now, including Washington Pass, Sunrise and Chinook Pass.
Our web development team has been very busy this fall, making many long anticipated improvements to the site. We launched the updated site this week and there are a few known glitches that have yet to be ironed out, so please be patient if you run across any.
Much time and energy is also going into an NWAC mobile app, anticipated to launch within a month or so.
As soon as the snow returns, we will be ready to launch into our daily winter routines, issuing daily mountain weather and avalanche forecasts. In the meantime, stay tuned, as we'll use this blog and other socials to keep you updated.