Weather
The Pacific Northwest stays unsettled through midweek, with a small southern-Cascades carryover event giving way to the broader Tuesday night through Thursday storm that matters most for skiers. Oregon starts with denser snow and the best near-term accumulation at Mt. Bachelor and Timberline, then the whole Cascade chain turns colder as snow levels fall toward and below pass level during the midweek system. That second push is the clearer regionwide shot, and by the time snow tapers Friday morning the deepest totals favor Timberline, Mt. Baker, Mt. Bachelor, and Stevens before a lower-confidence, weaker unsettled signal tries to return next weekend.
Snow already in progress around Mt. Bachelor continues to wind down only slowly through Sunday and Monday, while Timberline stays in the steadiest southern-Cascades band and Washington and Whistler mostly deal with lighter showers. The guidance is reasonably well clustered on this lower-end setup for timing, but snowfall intensity varies more in Oregon than farther north, so confidence is best in the existence of a modest refresh rather than exact amounts before Tuesday. Snow levels mostly run around 4,500-7,000 feet in Oregon and 3,000-4,000 feet farther north, which keeps the early Oregon snow fairly dense with SLRs around 5-10 at Timberline and 6-12 at Mt. Bachelor. Exposed Oregon terrain can still see gusts in the 30-50 mph range at times, while most Washington ridges look breezy but manageable.
The main forecast period is Tuesday night through Thursday night, when the models converge on a colder and much broader Cascade storm with the best regionwide coverage of the cycle. Timing agreement is strongest from Tuesday evening into Wednesday night, with snow filling in first near the higher volcanoes and then spreading through the Washington Cascades and Whistler before tapering to lingering showers on Thursday. Confidence is strongest from Saturday night through Friday morning because both the ongoing southern-Cascades snow and the midweek frontal reload are supported by the full guidance suite, even though one wetter solution is still pushing totals too high. Snow levels fall from roughly 3,000-4,500 feet at onset to near 500-2,500 feet by late Wednesday into Thursday, so passes and mid-mountain terrain turn increasingly wintry as the storm matures. That supports around 7-14 in for Stevens, Snoqualmie, Crystal, and Whistler, with Mt. Baker and the Oregon volcanoes pushing roughly 1-2 feet where the stronger bands linger. Snow quality improves with that cooling trend as well, starting with denser 7-10 SLR snow and finishing with more moderate to lighter 10-15 SLR snow, with occasional 15-plus ratios at the highest elevations. Ridge winds are another real factor, especially at Timberline and Mt. Bachelor where exposed terrain could gust 60-80 mph during the heart of the storm.
Friday looks like the cleanest break, but confidence drops quickly after that because the guidance diverges on whether the next Pacific wave actually organizes for the weekend and early next week. A cooler, quieter Friday should ski well if the midweek storm verifies, with lighter winds and leftover soft snow on shaded terrain, then forecast spread grows on timing, snow levels, and coverage of any follow-up precipitation. The broader late-period signal still leans no stronger than modestly unsettled, so the realistic outcome beyond Friday is mostly light refreshers, generally on the order of 2-6 in for most areas if anything materializes, with somewhat better upside only near Timberline, Stevens, and Mt. Baker. Temperatures in the larger-scale pattern look near normal rather than sharply colder, which supports a watch-and-wait approach instead of chasing a second well-defined storm this far out.
Resort Forecast Totals (Sat Apr 11 – Fri Apr 17)
- Timberline – 16-26 in
- Mt. Baker – 12-19 in
- Mt. Bachelor – 11-16 in
- Stevens Pass – 9-14 in
- Snoqualmie Pass – 8-13 in
- Crystal Mountain – 7-12 in
- Whistler – 7-11 in
