For people interested in the quality of the snowpack, it continues to be an extraordinary year. Today the weather is gloomy with a 40% chance of precip. The temperature at Pam Rocks (middle of Howe Sound) is 7º, down from a high of 10º yesterday.
The big news is that tomorrow, Saturday, we should see some sun and the temperature could soar to 21º. So, tomorrow could be the first warm day of 2008 for this region.
It is only when the temperatures at sea level rise above about 8º that precipitation in the mountains becomes rain instead of snow. This year we have received lots of precip, and almost all of it fell on the upper parts of the mountains as snow. And there has been almost no melting.
The last long-lead seasonal outlooks from NOAA was published on March 20:
COLD EPISODE (LA NINA) CONDITIONS CONTINUE ACROSS THE TROPICAL PACIFIC, ALTHOUGH THE EPISODE HAS WEAKENED OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS. SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES (SSTS) ARE BELOW AVERAGE THROUGHOUT THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC OCEAN BETWEEN 150E AND 110W. SSTS IN THE NINO 3.4 REGION (FROM 5N TO 5S AND 170W TO 120W) ARE A GOOD INDICATOR OF THE STRENGTH OF A LA NINA. THE WEEKLY NINO 3.4 INDEX VALUE PEAKED IN MID-FEBRUARY NEAR -2.0, AND HAS DECREASED TO NEAR -1.0 BY MID-MARCH. THIS DECREASE IN THE NINO 3.4 INDEX IS CONSISTENT WITH A WEAKENING OF LA NINA CONDITIONS. WEAKENING LA NINA CONDITIONS WERE ALSO OBSERVED AT THIS TIME OF YEAR DURING THE LAST STRONG LA NINA EPISODE IN BOTH 1999 AND 2000.
The prediction maps show nothing remarkable for this area, but certainly indicate considerable warming for the mid-southern USA and parts of Alaska. Last October this blog article noted that La Niña might produce a colder and wetter winter. I think it has.
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