It was tough to go wrong today on the mountain at Alpine Meadows. Everything on the mountain was good, and if one particular run had something you didn’t like, it was easy to just head in a different direction and try something new. Lines formed at just about every lift today at some point in time today, with Roundhouse and Scott again being the busiest. The big crowds had far greater impacts on traffic, parking and food services. Shut up and ski, I know.
For fair weather skiers, there’s good news. It looks like we may see the longest stretch of relatively fair weather we have seen since the season began this week. The inside slider that looked like it may bring some snow tomorrow looks like it will stay to our north. That brings us a possibility of 6 days before we see significant new snow in Tahoe. Fortunately, the coverage is pretty phenomenal right now so a break in snow will probably be welcome for those that have to move it, smooth it or remove it.
Their had been some talk of an intense low moving in next Saturday, with strong atmospheric river bringing heavy rain to 8,000 feet and above. Bryan Allegretto at Open Snow noted in his morning report that models were starting to kick that storm farther to the north coast. The model runs this afternoon continue that trend.
Update: The 00Z model puts the Saturday event back into play…it’s going to be important to keep watching this over the next few days!
The second storm in that series gets going by Sunday afternoon and will bring more cold air, meaning snow instead of rain in Tahoe. By Monday, that storm could bring 1-2 feet of snow. This storm is still a week out so things are likely to change as we get closer. We bring it up only to remind people that it will snow in Tahoe again. Facing 5 or 6 days of fair weather does not mean that the RRR is falling back into place. Short term periods of ridging are normal.
Update: The 00Z model goes crazy on this event, bringing the possibility of 4-5 feet late next weekend. There’s no possibility of placing a winning bet on one model run. It does point out the importance of paying attention over the week as this storm has the potential to affect mountain operations and travel around Tahoe.
Heading into that second week, there is another similar storm midweek. As we get to the second weekend the weather world is already noting the appearance of a strong AR event setting up for Super Bowl weekend. It’s definitely out in Fantasyland, but at some point one of these strong AR events is going to hold together. We’ll keep watching the models. Enjoy some sunny weather for a change this week.
Thats part of Alpine now right?