Good Morning,
Was a wild and windy weekend in the Northwest as the last remnants of a two week long storm blew through leaving thousands without power and mountains with more snow. Looking forward, the northwest gets dryer, yet remains above normal, while Palo sees its first days in the 90s.
WECC Hub-level Weather Outlook
A smallish storm next week has made an appearance, where last Friday it was dry, rendering the overall outlook about normal. California goes dry, and they are probably pleased with that outlook after enjoying record rains. Their rivers, and the northwest’s for that matter, are raging:
Lots of black dots, lots of record setting, happening up and down the west coast. Check out some of the recent flows in California:
7600 cfs on the Consumnes; contrast that with same day flows over any of the last 5 years. The Golden State’s reservoirs are filling up, Shasta is nearing a 5 year high:
Only New Melones is lagging, and that probably because of flood control issues. The northwest rivers are also full, at least on the west side of the Cascades, but not so much where it counts – above Coulee:
Bonneville passed 246,000 cfs average yesterday, a new five year high. Expect all flows to taper off over the next week as the weather returns to normal and the termination of the draft begins today. Coulee’s forebay is now down to 1254′ and the drum gate maintenance can commence. The next draft will begin around April 10 and will be a modest ten feet spread over twenty days.
Prepare yourself for a general tightening of hydro energy at the Mid-C for the next several weeks. The NWRFC has already started backing down its forecasts:
Those are material cuts from Mar 18-21, nearly 4000 aMW, and may be indicative of a bullish STP today. Speaking of bullish, Phoenix is projected to kiss the 90s this week:
Palo Verde Max Temperature Forecasts
Today’s forecast is 5-10 degrees higher than Friday’s and is 12-15 above normal. Palo loads are rallying about 800 aMW in our forecast:
Which doesn’t say much because overall loads have been off across the WECC.
That downward sloping trend will be reversing itself with the warm weather in the south, though the northwest loads shall remain soft with temperatures forecasted 4-8 degrees above normal.
Our outlook for Balance of Month is slightly bullish driven mostly by the dramatic cuts in northwest hydro:
Click here to view the full 24 month forecast. This weekend was brutal for the Mid-C with strong winds and lots of water, plus, as if that wasn’t enough pain, the AC was derated to 1500 yesterday:
Stay turned for today’s STP, it might be an interesting one.
Mike