Good Morning,
Hope everyone had a nice holiday and are ready to get back to work as there is some work to be done to figure out what all the updates are and what they mean. Let’s start with weather, it has warmed and turned a bit wetter:
Two weeks ago the outlook was quite bullish, today it is not; it is, at best, neutral, but I’d call it bearish, especially when compared to temperatures from last week. Loads did spike a bit last week but, with the cold falling over the holiday, the event was mostly a non-event:
The north realized a decent spike but the south not so much. The precip outlook has gotten bearish as well:
Where last week there was no precip we now see some, not a lot, but not bone dry. Call it neutral as the forecast reflects climatology but just the hint of precip suggests a breakdown in the blocking high which could lead to another system. Even California is starting to look wet:
Reminds me of … El Nino! The latest dearth of snow has taken its toll on the current snow pack anomalies:
Take note of the six basins at the bottom of the list – five of those are above Coulee and all are below normal. Mind you these are not drought-like numbers but they are below normal. The River Forecast Center concurs, perhaps a shade too bullish:
Where does that Snake River – Hells number come from? Upper Snake, Middle Snake, and Salmon all have 120% or greater snow pack anomalies. Let’s not get too picky, the salient point here are the declines over last week – Coulee from 99% to 90%. If the dry had persisted that station would be in the lower 80s by mid-month, but moot point, there is some precip heading towards the NW.
On another front we see that BPA has extended the work on the DC into early Feb. The latest post is for a derate to 595 on the south-bound (see BPA outage ID 257864).
The above plot comes from the Ansergy Daily Forecast and we picked up the change hours after it was posted. Today is STP Monday and our tea leaves suggest a bump in the front and cuts in the back:
Yep, it’s a mixed bag of news which should make for some choppy trading but my take is that overall the new year is a touch more bearish in the front and a bit more bullish in the back.
MIke