The January 2024 ice storm

What happened

A strong arctic front crossed western Oregon and Washington on January 12 and 13 and pushed lowland temperatures well below freezing. Moisture arriving over that cold layer fell as freezing rain along the coast, in Coast Range valleys and through the Willamette Valley north into southwest Washington. NOAA’s Portland office reported more than an inch of ice around Springfield and up to 2 inches in parts of the Coast Range in Lane and Benton counties.

In the Portland and Vancouver metro areas the first wave came as a snow and sleet mix driven by east winds of 35 to 55 mph, with gusts near 75 mph at the west end of the Gorge, where Cascade Locks lost power citywide. Portland General Electric’s outage count peaked at 165,000 customers. On the coast, about 39 percent of Lincoln County and roughly half of Tillamook and Clatsop counties lost power.

The cold did not break. From January 16 to 20 more freezing rain fell on the ice already in place: about half an inch at the Portland airport and in Salem, with the public reporting up to an inch, and a quarter inch to an inch in the Gorge, where I-84 closed between Troutdale and Hood River for about 31 hours. A last round of freezing rain hit the Gorge on January 21 as the arctic air retreated.

The storm in NOAA’s numbers

NOAA’s Storm Events Database files this storm as 7 episodes from the National Weather Service offices in Medford (MFR) and Portland (PQR), dated January 11–21, 2024. Counting the six tree-relevant report types (high wind, strong wind, thunderstorm wind, ice storm, winter storm and heavy snow), the episodes hold 49 reports: 32 ice storm and 17 winter storm (32 in Oregon; 17 in Washington). The same episodes hold 4 other reports (blizzard 4), which are not counted in that total. None of the counted reports carries a measured or estimated gust; ice storm and winter storm reports are filed without one. Of the counted reports, 5 mention trees in the narrative.

A report is one entry per forecast zone or county per event, so one storm crossing many zones produces many reports. Gusts are in knots as NOAA records them (1 kt is about 1.15 mph).

Affected counties

21 counties have at least one counted report (17 in Oregon; 4 in Washington). The most reports touched Skamania County, WA (14), Hood River County, OR (9) and Lane County, OR (8). Most wind, ice and snow reports are filed by forecast zone, and a zone report is assigned here to every county that zone covers, so a county’s number is the reports that touched it, not separate incidents.

Damage, deaths and injuries

NOAA’s property damage field for these episodes adds up to $47.7 million in nominal dollars, as entered by the NWS offices at the time and not adjusted for inflation. The event records list 15 deaths (15 direct, 0 indirect) and 16 injuries across these episodes. NOAA’s fatality file gives a location for each death it holds: “Unknown” 7; “Outside/Open Areas” 4; “Permanent Home” 2; “Under Tree” 2.

Two reports carry most of the dollar figure: $34.4 million for the southern Willamette Valley (from Lane, Linn and Benton county estimates) and $10.25 million for the Portland metro (Multnomah and Clackamas; Washington County gave none). The Portland office also cites a separate state estimate of $165 million in January business losses statewide, which is not part of NOAA’s damage field. The narratives attribute the deaths to suspected hypothermia, falling trees and objects, the generator fire, a tree that fell on an RV and started a fire, and the electrocutions. NOAA’s fatality file codes 2 of them as “Under Tree”.

What it meant for trees

Portland’s report is one of the most tree-specific in the NOAA file for these two states. Portland Parks and Recreation counted 380 downed trees or large branches, Lake Oswego counted more than 100, and NOAA put the metro total at 500 or more once trees on private land were added. Falling trees damaged at least 10 homes and 25 cars, and the city closed 29 roads for downed lines and trees.

Ice adds weight to every limb and twig while wind levers that load, so the two together break more wood than either alone. In northern Douglas County, NOAA logged numerous limbs and whole trees down around Drain, Yoncalla and Elkton from only about a quarter inch of ice. On the central coast, about an inch of ice brought trees down widely enough that Lincoln County declared an emergency.

What homeowners can learn from it

• Treat iced branches over wires and cars as live hazards. In the second wave an ice-laden branch brought a power line down onto a car in Portland, and three people were electrocuted getting out; an infant in the car survived. Leave every downed line to the utility; tree removal near power lines explains who can work near them.
• Plan for a long outage. Some households in Lane County were without power for weeks, and the Eugene utility had restored about 92 percent of its affected customers only by January 22. Two deaths came from a fire started by a generator used to heat an apartment.
• Photograph before anything is moved. Pictures of the tree, the stump or root plate and the damage are the evidence an insurer will want; storm damage and tree insurance in Oregon and storm damage and tree insurance in Washington explain what policies usually cover.
• If a tree is on the house, a car or a line, get people out of reach first. Then call the utility for anything touching wires; emergency tree service and fallen tree removal cover what happens next, and tree work safety explains why a crew should handle trees under tension.

Local pages: emergency tree service in Portland, Salem, Eugene and Vancouver, and PGE tree trimming for lines. Before the next storm season, the tree risk checklist walks you around your own trees, and Oregon storm records and Washington storm records put this storm in context.

How this page was built

Every number above is computed from NOAA’s Storm Events bulk files for episodes 188523, 189508, 188157, 189336, 189339, 191357, 191359. Episodes were chosen by ranking all Washington and Oregon episodes from 2016 to mid-2026 on tree-relevant report counts, property damage and tree mentions, and episodes from different offices or states were merged when their narratives describe the same system on the same dates. Snow episodes in eastern Oregon and Washington on the same dates, and the Seattle office’s cold and freezing-rain episode, are separate and not counted. Blizzard reports in the Gorge are part of these episodes but outside the six types counted. The Portland narrative’s own split of direct and indirect deaths does not match NOAA’s coded fields exactly; this page uses the coded fields. Damage figures are NOAA’s nominal-dollar estimates and are often blank. See all storms on the storm history index and the site’s methodology.