Winter Storm — North Oregon Cascades, Oregon

2021-02-11 to 2021-02-13 · North Oregon Cascades, Oregon

Event narrative

Wide variety of impacts due to snow and ice, ranging from a crippling snow event at all elevations in the northern half and elevated portions south of Santiam Canyon, a crippling snow to ice event in the Santiam Canyon. There were several reports of 2 feet of snow within the zone. Greatest overall total we could find was 27 inches at Mt Hood Meadows.

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 946436. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.