Ice Storm — Greater Portland Metro Area, Oregon

2021-02-14 to 2021-02-15 · Greater Portland Metro Area, Oregon

Event narrative

While much of the Portland metro area was already reeling from the snow and ice event Feb 11-13, another slug of freezing rain came on the 14th and early 15th, this time mainly impacting downtown and eastern portions of the metro while most western areas changed over to plain rain. East metro locations received generally 0.50-1.00 of ice from this second event, with amounts tapering off quickly to the south and west of Portland. This added to the problems with power outages due to snow and ice, with estimates of 200-300k people without power in the metro area. The ice also disrupted mass transit, shutting down the MAX system due to ice on the wires.

Wider weather episode

This was a major, widespread, multi-faceted winter storm that caused major problems across the northern 2/3 of our forecast area, even (and especially) in the lowlands. Impacts were felt as far south as Albany. WFO Portland measured 10.1 of snow, followed by roughly 0.75 of ice. Significant impacts to infrastructure occurred, with over 400,000 people losing power at some point during the storm. The area impacted the hardest appears to be the southern portions of the Portland metro, south through Oregon City and Silverton and as far south as Salem and Aumsville. Polk County was hit hard by ice as well, with 1.00 to 1.75 of ice reported. Some people in these areas hard-hit by ice lost power for over a week.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 946433. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.