Good afternoon,
Here is a look at today’s fundamentals.
Weather
SP15 stands out as much cooler than normal, particularly when you move away from the coast as San Diego looks to be the exception. Same story in NP as Sacramento and Lake Tahoe show temp anomalies greater than four degrees below normal. Mid-C is a mixed bag with several stations above and below normal, though none have large variances from normal.
Burbank’s forecast took a five-degree cut beginning on the 23rd and extending through the 27th (compared to yesterday’s forecast). This amounts to daily highs staying below normal until the 28th, which would also mark the only 70-degree day until perhaps April.
As noted earlier, the interior stations of SP15 marked a decent cooldown, but San Diego does not. Today should top out in the mid-70s, around eight degrees above normal, before eventually dropping back toward the average. Highs should recover quickly from there however as the end of the month and April in particular are forecasting well above average.
San Jose is projected to dip as low as 57 by the 24th, marking a high that is nine degrees below normal. Temps should eventually climb back above the red-line, but that may take as long as the 27th. 70-degree days look to make their return soon after, while there is nary a hint of 80-degree highs.
Moving inland doesn’t help us find a hot forecast either as Sacramento looks cooler than San Jose. A high of 56 is expected on the 24th, a full ten degrees below normal. We’ll be well into next week before the forecast calls for an above-average high, though the remainder of the month from that point on looks to stay well into the 70’s.
Tomorrow’s forecast was cut by two degrees but retained enough to still project a high of 90 (12 degrees above normal), the first 90-degree day of the year. Enjoy it while you can because highs will swing the opposite direction quickly, falling to 72 by the 26th, seven below normal. The next 90-degree day is forecasted for April 2nd.
While Phoenix gets its first 90-degree day tomorrow, Las Vegas is getting nowhere close to that for at least a few weeks. Highs are set to fall from 73 today to just 62 by the 25th, dipping ten degrees below normal. Early April shows potential for several mid-80 days.
With lows in the mid-40’s and highs reaching 70, degree days in Denver could tighten up quite a bit over the next few days. That weather will take a wild turn, as you’d expect in Denver, as highs plummet to just 38 on the 27th, 22 degrees below normal.
Seattle projects a trough for the next seven days as highs settle mostly in the high 40’s and low 50’s until the 28th. Things don’t warm up much thereafter either, as just two days in the next 21 are projected to reach into the 60s.
Cool weather for Portland as well, though its forecast saw a one or two degree bump over yesterday’s through the 29th. High will still be stuck in the 40’s through the weekend before beginning a slow climb to 65 by the 29th.
Nothing above a 60-degree day on the horizon for Spokane means no massive single-day runoff in sight. Upper elevations may trickle in the afternoon, but with temps staying below freezing at night, there won’t be much melt to note.
Hydro
Massive increases are in store over the next three days as the RFC moves from 14,418 aMW today to 16,818 aMW by Saturday. These elevated levels won’t last long, however, as projections fall to 14,502 aMW by the end of the ten days. STP stays steadily behind the RFC forecast every day beginning tomorrow.
These maps are one week apart. Low level snow made a small return to some parts of Eastern Oregon, though nothing significant. The upper elevations of Mid-C snowpack remain in place as no impact is shown on the maps.
Every hub increased their Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) overnight and showed even larger gains compared to one week ago. NP15 shows an additional 2.27″ compared to last week, though the hub still falls more than 5″ short of average.
Grand Coulee showed signs of slowing down its draw as just 1% of capacity has decreased over the past three days. The reservoir currently sits at 51%, at least two percentage points below each of the past three years for the equivalent date.
Generation
Gas outages fell to 6,715 MW on the 17th but jumped back to 8,217 MW as of today. While elevated compared to last week, gas outages remain well below their highs seen at the beginning of the month. Hydro reached 3,557 MW over the weekend and saw returns since then as outages fell to 2,910 as of today. no other sources showed major movements in recent days.
Transmission
Daily average flows have fallen more than 900 MW since the 16th as yesterday settled at 2,512 MW. Every hour from yesterday failed to reach the weekly average flow of 3,003 MW as yesterday’s high topped out at 2,767 MW.
MC-BC has stayed fairly steady for the past week as daily average flows haven’t deviated more than 230 MW from the weekly average. Yesterday’s daily average settled at 170 with an hourly high of 647 in the early hours and low of -830 by 8 AM (four hours later).
Enjoy your week,
William