Good Morning,
Starting with weather … the WECC is looking at another bearish week with warm temps and robust precip. The Mid-C storm we first discussed early last week, the one that was in the 10-15, survived the calendar and now appears locked in:
Mid-C Composite Weather Forecast
in fact it has grown in intensity from where we left things late last week and will impact the production basins:
Northern California will also receive a decent dump (nearly an inch) setting up the week to be wet for most of the WECC. It’s already been wet and snow pack is building to anomalies not seen since the December storm systems moved through:
Snow Pack – Selected BC and Mid-C Stations:
There were week on week builds across the basins and many of these are approaching the Dec levels. The Water Supply Forecast is rallying, albeit at a much slower pace than the snow anomalies.
NWRFC Apr-Sep Water Supply Forecast:
Contrast the current forecast with the values used in the Jan Flood Control guidelines:
Coulee was 93% then, 95% today; The Dalles was 94% and is now 97%; The Canadian levels are off a bit, too low if you look at snow pack, but much of their draft was in January and is pretty much over. The Feb drafts should be expected to increase given another storm hitting this week and hints of one to follow the first week of Feb, Most of any increased draft will occur at GCL in April which could set that month up for some big water. Of course it is too early to say it how bearish it will be, many things can happen that will dampen the effect of that enhanced draft, things like a cold April, but even then Coulee will still be dumping nearly half its usable storage in just a few short weeks.
Renewables were robust over the weekend, especially in the light load.
The DC is now flowing energy to SP:
Ironically the Northern Intertie south-bound flows have backed off a bit:
Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me given the big wind and the return of the DC but is probably just a short-term aberration and BC will continue to flood the northwest with its surplus energy. The return of the DC has also affected flows within California as SP15 is now pulling less from ZP and NP pulling more:
That does make sense, SP is now longer by a 1000 aMW and consequently the electrons flow north out of ZP. Today is Monday and that means the NWRFC will be releasing its 120 day forecast later this afternoon. Our tea leaves suggest a major revision upwards, check out the 10 Day forecast.
NWRFC 10 Day Forecast vs Last Week’s STP:
Whoa – that is a major change for the end of the week – for the entire week. Friday, the 29th, is projected to be 3000 aMW more energy than last week’s STP for the same day. One can only surmise that today’s STP will be a large bump for Feb, from 500 to 2000 aMW. For that matter the whole strip should see increases but our confidence is high that Feb will be jacked big.
Mike