The forecasts have come into agreement in the last 24 hours. It’s just not the solution we were hoping for this weekend. Our dry spell is currently running at about 14 days, which is far from record territory. In fact according to Ben at Powdiction.com, the average June-uary dry spell in Tahoe has been 21 days over the last 60 years. Last year’s dry spell ran a dismal 49 days. So it’s really not the end of the world yet.
All of the bloggers and NOAA say that we are in for about 6-8 inches of snow by Sunday at most. The first storm this week became somewhat of a bust when snow levels rose to 8000′ today. As of 8pm tonight it was still 38° and drizzling in Truckee.
Fortunately, Alpine Meadows has been grooming everything a lot. Six inches of powder on huge moguls is not fun for many people. When the snow does fall, the initial snowfall should be wetter before snow levels crash to near 2000′ Sunday. It will be another good weekend to get your groomer game on until the snow begins to build, and even then, high speed pow arcs in smoother terrain may be the best bet. Snorkels would likely be overkill this weekend. Just remember, all skiing and riding is good.
In the longer term – we’ve been in that painful mode of the never ending “hoping for a storm 10 days out.” Fortunately, Paul at the Tahoe Weather Blog has come to the rescue with a first real significant sign of hope. The EC model is putting 8-10 inches of precipitation into our forecast between February 4th and February 10th.
That’s still pretty far out there so things may change. Just in simple numbers, this is the fifth time this season that the EC model has called for a large storm cycle. The model called the first three big cycles just right. It over-forecast the last one. Hopefully that model is right this time and we can get back into some powder days.
We heard it might snow more at Squaw Valley 😉