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A Break From Skiing

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I apologize for the lack of real time reports on ski conditions over the last several days. Up through Saturday, it just wasn’t worth going skiing. A family emergency brought me to the Bay Area the last few days. It doesn’t look like I missed much of anything – although it looks like conditions may have improved today.

Here’s the key things we noted on Facebook reporting on conditions from yesterday:

Image via Friends of Alpine Meadows
Screen shot of the creek running next to Dance Floor. Video via Dr. Tim

The general gist was that Rock Garden and Dance Floor had been groomed to the point where it was very firm but edgeable. One report noted that you could stick a ski pole into the surface, so it was not the worst day ever. Off piste was an entirely different story. One skier reported that it was so firm, that it was like a giant terrain park where you could just spin and slide everywhere. Summit did not open, likely due to the “slide for life” conditions. We also heard several reports of large amounts of water flowing on the mountain and washed out sections of snow all over the mountain.

Frankly, the efforts made to keep the mountain open at all through the deluge and into the post deluge days has been admirable. It’s good that there’s some people out there making the best of it.

Skiing today should have been significantly better, with temperatures nearing 40° at the base, allowing for the surface to thaw a bit. That said, conditions will rapidly change again starting tomorrow as the next storm starts to take hold. Before getting to any sort of specifics, I would call your attention to this statement from a recent Reno Forecast Discussion:

This is an evolving situation and model solutions are likely to change numerous times before Wednesday.

The current setup in the Pacific is a complex one that leads to a lot of forecasting headaches. If you follow some of the more active weather blogs, there’s a lot of handwringing as each new model run comes out and suddenly the forecast changes. We’ve mentioned before that AR events are tricky because movement of the jet stream just a 100 miles north or south can cause big changes in expected precipitation amounts and snow levels.

NOAA has posted a Winter Storm Watch for tomorrow. Do note that snow levels are not ideal, but they might be better than the last storm:

338 AM PST MON DEC 12 2016

…WINTER STORM WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE TUESDAY NIGHT… THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE TUESDAY NIGHT.

* TIMING: SNOW WILL BEGIN BY LATE TUESDAY MORNING AND CONTINUE INTO TUESDAY NIGHT. SNOW MAY BE HEAVY AT TIMES TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING IN THE SIERRA.

* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: POTENTIALLY A FOOT OR MORE ABOVE 8000 FEET WITH 4 TO 12 INCHES BETWEEN 7000 AND 8000 FEET. 2 TO 6 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE BELOW 7000 FEET.

* WINDS: SOUTHWEST 10 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 35 MPH. SIERRA RIDGE GUSTS UP TO 95 MPH.

* SNOW LEVELS: NEAR LAKE LEVEL ON TUESDAY THEN RISING TO ABOVE 7500 FEET LATE TUESDAY EVENING.

So the skiing tomorrow will likely be a bit damp at the low end of the mountain. The upper mountains will likely see a couple of challenges for operations. If winds do get anywhere near 95 mph, that will stop lift operations on the upper mountain. The other issue will be that will be a significant amount of new snow falling on what is essentially a pretty slick surface. The risk of inbounds slides will be very real tomorrow, as will be continued “slide for life” conditions. With two skier’s losing their lives over the last few days in Tahoe, it’s a time to remember that better conditions are going to arrive some day – we want to be around to ski those better conditions.

As Wednesday moves into Thursday, snow levels will rise again. The question is how much rain will fall. Some models show the possibility that the AR will trend north, drying us out for a day. Other models keep the firehose pointed right at us. As Thursday changes into Friday, the current thinking is that snow levels will crash again and bring a decent chance of a good snow. Here’s the 6 day model output from the GFS, with most of that not arriving until Friday.

The Euro shows the potential for 2-3 feet of snow as we head into the weekend. The GFS currently shows a similar result. Image via WindyTV.com

One more time….

This is an evolving situation and model solutions are likely to change numerous times before Wednesday.

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