Keep Those Counter-Jinxes Coming!

Nearly another week has gone by, and the ski season at Alpine Meadows, and other Tahoe ski areas, is still jinxed. Things don’t look much better this week than they did last week when it comes to the amount of snow available for skiing and riding. While it’s kind of nice to be out in short sleeves and riding bikes, I know I am not the only one that’s ready for a change.

Fortunately for most of us, it’s just that experience of sliding on the snow with our friends that we are missing. But a late start to the season is certainly a much bigger concern to those that rely on ski area paychecks to cover the simple things like rent and food. Hopefully the small changes we’re seeing in the forecast over the last couple of days will accelerate and amplify, for everyone’s sake.

So what are those changes? The models have been trying to break down the current RRR, or ridiculously resilient ridge, for more than a week. Finally we’re starting to see some consistency in the pattern across more of the models. The first of these weak systems looks to arrive early Monday with a chance of showers. The following systems look progressively stronger. Here’s the forecast GIF of the GFS model over the next 16 days:

The inversion layer has still been persistent in Tahoe this week. While the lows in Truckee have been into the teens, the lows on the mountains are much warmer. Some of the midweek lows mid-mountain at Alpine Meadows never even got below 40°. Ouch. So even though the social media posts of all of the Tahoe ski areas cheerfully say “We’re making snow whenever we can!”, it really means “We can’t make snow when it’s this warm.” Well, I do suppose it’s possible that they could all make snow in the cold Martis Valley nights and truck it to the mountains…

What’s Your Counter-Jinx?

I’ve been doing as much as I can to not jinx this season, as Mother Nature knows when you’re counting your snowflakes before they fall. Here’s my contributions:

• I purchased new skis way back in August, but I haven’t taken them in to get mounted. I haven’t even taken them out of the wrappers. In fact, I haven’t touched my ski gear yet. It’s buried in the garage and in closets under camping and biking gear.

• I haven’t put snow tires on my car yet. I haven’t even made the appointment at Stone’s Tires yet, which means I may not get it done until 2 months after it snows.

• The lawn furniture is still out on the patio and the lawnmower sits uncovered in the back yard.

• I haven’t started the snowblower yet, nor even put in fresh gas.

• We keep washing our cars. The fleet is cleaner than it has been in years.

• We keep making reservations for camping. Last week we were in Bodega Bay, and soon we have a plan to go to Pismo Beach. Camping this late in the year is weird. The sun sets by 5pm, so dinner is early and you need a lot of firewood to keep your night going. If I were really dedicated, I would plan on tent camping.

I have to admit, I blew it and bought a new ski helmet this week. Protecting my noggin is important to me, so I refresh my helmet often. The right size and color was available, which is better than waiting for the right freight bin to be unloaded in Long Beach. This one action may have set the season back a week! Apologies…

What are your counter jinxes? Let’s hear them.