Weather
The Pacific Northwest stays warm and mostly springlike through Friday, with Washington seeing much more rain than powder and Oregon largely stuck in maintenance mode. Conditions should improve some over the weekend as temperatures ease back down, but the more meaningful reset comes Tuesday through Thursday night, when colder air and a broader Pacific storm bring the region’s best chance for fresh snow, led by Mt Baker and Whistler and followed by a solid reload at several other open resorts.
Through Friday, the models are tightly clustered on timing, intensity, snow levels, and generally manageable winds, and that consensus points to limited ski improvement across most of the Cascades. Washington stays on the wet side of the pattern, with snow levels holding around 7,000 to 8,000 feet in the north and 9,000 to 10,000 feet in the south, so Mt Baker, Stevens Pass, Crystal Mountain, and Snoqualmie Pass all spend much of this stretch rain-dominated at lift level. Whistler fares better because its upper mountain sits high enough for periodic dense to moderate 6-10 ratios while the lower mountain stays wet. Oregon is quieter overall, with Timberline and Mt Bachelor seeing mostly dry to only lightly damp spring conditions, soft snow by afternoon, and limited overnight recovery.
Saturday through Monday, the cooling trend is the part of the forecast with the best agreement, while precipitation coverage is where the models start to separate. Snow levels fall back toward roughly 1,000 to 3,500 feet, which should help surfaces firm up overnight and ski better than the warm midweek stretch, but snowfall intensity still looks modest for most areas. Some solutions are close to dry, while others squeeze out light refreshes in northern Washington and at Whistler, so the message here is improving snow quality more than a true storm cycle. Winds also stay fairly modest in this period, which should let the colder temperatures do the work. Snoqualmie Pass remains closed, so any refresh there is more about rebuilding snowpack than immediate lift-served skiing.
Confidence is highest from Tuesday through Thursday night, when the models converge on a colder Pacific storm with lowering snow levels and widespread accumulating snow. Timing agreement is good, with snow reaching Whistler and the Washington volcanoes first, then spreading through the rest of Washington and into Oregon as the storm deepens. Snow levels should start around 2,000 to 5,000 feet for most resorts, then drop toward roughly 500 to 3,000 feet by Wednesday night and Thursday, so snow quality should improve as the storm matures: many areas start with dense to fair 6-10 ratios, then trend toward more supportable 10-14 or locally higher ratios later in the storm. Intensity spread is still meaningful, especially southward into Oregon, and wind impacts also look more serious there, with the strongest ridgeline gusts around Timberline and Mt Bachelor potentially pushing 60 to 80 mph. After Thursday night, most guidance only adds a few extra inches, but one wetter solution would keep snow going into Friday and push totals higher.
Resort Forecast Totals (Tue Mar 24 – Thu Mar 26)
- Mt Baker – 10"-25"
- Whistler – 10"-24"
- Timberline – 7"-18"
- Stevens Pass – 7"-17"
- Snoqualmie Pass – 6"-15"
- Crystal Mountain – 6"-14"
- Mt Bachelor – 3"-6"
