Mt. Hood Meadows and Timberline are hoping the rain doesn’t wash away their bases after picking up a foot and a half of new snow over the weekend.

 A powerful storm system pummeled Mount Hood over the weekend, bringing winds that peaked at 123 miles per hour at the top of the Magic Mile Friday night. The precipitation fell as heavy rain Friday night, then switched to snow for Saturday and Sunday.

Timberline picked up 19 inches of snow over the weekend, Meadows 15 inches and Skibowl 11 inches.

But warmer temperatures are expected on the mountain this week, probably bringing rain. Hopefully it won’t be as much rain as we got on Mount Hood one year ago, when a monster storm dumped nine inches of rain in 24 hours over Thanksgiving weekend, decimating snow bases at all three resorts.

This week’s forecast is calling for intermittent rain, possibly turning to snow by Saturday.

Meadows is planning to operate for three days over Thanksgiving weekend, after two preview weekends brought enthusiastic response in spite of limited open terrain (Buttercup and Easy Rider last weekend).

Meadows spokesman Dave Tragethon says the extent of operations is weather dependent:

“We would like more natural snow to bolster our current 19” snow depth in the base area. We are fortunate to have the equipment, expertise and commitment to harvest the parking lot snow which will help us to build lift ramps and snow depth in the base area, to connect to the upper mountain. We are hopeful we’ll have more natural snow on the upper mountain to offer more terrain this weekend.”

Timberline also plans to open for three days for the holiday after backing away from its earlier plan to begin seven-days-a-week operation this week. Heavy winds shut down the Magic Mile and Palmer chairs over the weekend, leaving only the beginner’s run at Bruno’s.

Skibowl is unlikely to open skiing and snowboarding terrain for Thanksgiving weekend, but it has been operating its tubing hill at Skibowl East, so tubing at Multorpor will be another Mount Hood option for the holiday weekend.

Last modified: November 24, 2014