After a month of spring corn days, it’s somewhat of a delight to finish out what is likely the last week of the season with some powder days. Fortunately, today we were not cut off by poor visibility or high winds. Instead we had bluebird skies, which is good and bad. This time of year it does not take too long for the sun to cook the powder, even with the cold air temperatures.
Forecast-wise, this storm did not hold up. In the days leading up to the storm, the models kept pumping up the numbers. Yesterday, it seemed like 18 inches of new snow would be a reasonable outcome. The storm tracked just a bit further north than expected. More importantly, the models put a lot of hope into afternoon heavy convective snow showers. They never really materialized. The official report was 9 inches of new snow. Favored areas were probably closer to a foot. Up higher, several areas were wind scoured or wind packed. The winners today appeared to be Wolverine Bowl and the High Yellow Gully zone.
What did hold up was the forecast for a larger than usual midweek crowd. The upper lots were probably 90% full at peak this morning. The race through the Breezeway to the Summit line was steady in the morning hours. Although the Summit line looked really long, extending outside of the RFID gates, the corral was set up small so that is misleading.
By around 11;30, the accessible powder was pretty trashed. There’s not a lot of room to spread out on the mountain at this time of year. It also seemed like most people were wary of lightly buried rocks and obstacles, so that put many people in the Alpine Bowl and Wolverine Bowl zones. When we left around noon, there were many people that had already left, or were chilling in the parking lot.
The Next Storm?
Tomorrow, we get another partly cloudy and cold day until the next storm moves in late afternoon. The models have already started trending this one a bit to the north as well. Over the last 6 model runs, the total snow forecast by Friday has dwindled from 18-20 inches yesterday to more like 6-10 inches, falling mostly on Thursday. Intermittent small storms are fine, as we’re not likely to get back to spring corn by Sunday.
Looking further ahead to the weekend…the models are still bullish on another bigger round of winter…
I had a fantastic morning of April powder!