Never Say Never

That blue sky appeared once again this morning, and for a little bit longer than expected. The clouds didn’t really start moving in until about 1pm today. That meant that we had another great opportunity to explore the mountain with great visibility and mostly soft winter snow. So explore we did. A number of our friends headed immediately to High Traverse, seeking out the powder that was not available yesterday. Feeling just a bit lazy, I decided to wait for the powder to return tomorrow.

It was a mixed bag off of Summit this morning. Only Alpine Bowl was groomed and it was fairly busy. Much of the terrain skiers left of Alpine Bowl got a bit too warm yesterday. Getting in to Wolverine Bowl is still a challenge, with no road cut into Wolverine Saddle yet. Pygmy Forest and points beyond still offered soft winter snow, but the bumps are growing.

Lower down on the mountain, we noted that Yellow was groomed overnight and so was Banana Chute. As we head into a (hopefully) short dry spell, additional grooming is going to become more important.

The weather was great this morning, lots of lifts were spinning and lines were minimal. So what did we do? We decided that today would be a day to test out using the B2B as intended. There was little chance of the thing going on wind hold and it was running as one continuous lift this morning. When I suggested it on our third chair ride, people thought I had gone nuts. But then they thought about it and the plan did make sense.

I’ve already mentioned that the ride is a beautiful scenic ride on the right day. Today was one of those days. The whole ride experience was odd relative to my experience with the Mammoth gondola. Although several employees were around, almost no assistance was offered. Only one in our party tried using the ski racks, which were mostly filled with snow. The rest of us just brought skis into the cabin. At Mammoth, employees take your skis and place them in the ski racks and you just get in the cabin. Things were no better unloading at Palisades. That one pair of skis was now stuck in the rack, and no employees noticed the problem. The way the barriers are set up, you have about 10 seconds to get your skis out of the rack before you’re jumping barriers. Needless to say we didn’t bother with the racks on the way back to Alpine. With skis in the cabin it’s probably a better fit for 4-6 people, not 8. The loading and unloading experience was definitely not world class.

We made a quick transfer to the Funitel and headed for the upper mountain, then Big Blue toward Shirley Express. We did a token run on Fifth Tree and found that a little busy. So instead we headed to Solitude…where we found solitude.  Reuters and Teenage Wasteland offered just perfect winter snow with some awesome little bumps. My run of the day was actually over at Palisades today…never say never.

While riding Solitude this morning we noted a lot of activity over at Silverado. The lift was even spinning slowly on diesel power. So Silverado will happen fairly soon is my guess.  The bumps over at Granite Chief looked a bit bigger than at Solitude and not everyone on our mission wanted to ski Granite Chief today. That “Furthest Corner” badge will have to wait for another day. We chose to take Sunnyside back to the base area to avoid Mountain Run. I have never seen Sunnyside so filled in.

Back at the home mountain, it did feel like home again. We squeezed in a few laps on Scott and Lakeview before the cloud layer started thickening and the light started getting flatter. The Palisades marketing department noted that over 29 feet of snow has fallen so far this season. That seems to be the amount of snow it takes to cover all of the brush and debris on Scotty’s Beam, as it’s fully covered like it has not been for years. What a treat it was to ski it today with pleasant bumps, no ice and no obstacles.

Snow returns overnight and it should be nice and cold for producing the light snow we like to ski. The point forecast is now up to saying 10-14 inches of snow are probable overnight at Alpine Meadows. So the models I mentioned two days ago appear to be on track. This is a quick hitting storm and may be over by the time lifts spin tomorrow. As always, there is a possibility of delays and impacts due to wind. For Friday, east winds could be a problem for Summit operations.

Look At The Long Range

I know people are worried that we could go into a super long dry spell like we did last year at this time. It was right about this date when the storm tap shut off for three months. Right now, that does not appear to be what will happen. There’s a couple of pieces of the forecast that tell us that is not likely to happen.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation is looking like it will become more active again as we get into the last week of January. Over the last month, it’s been in a barely active state. But the MJO forecast indicates that it is about to become more active as different parts of the ocean heat up. looking at the graphic above, there’s two things of note. First the dots get farther from the center “circle of doom”, which is the indication of a stronger MJO impact. Second the MJO moves into Phase 2 and 3. Those phases are the ones that are most likely to bring moisture to the west coast. Check the graphic below for the 8 phases. In a “normal year” we circle through the 8 phases every few weeks, bringing us wet periods and dry periods on a regular basis. That’s really better than the feast or famine mode we saw last season, or earlier this month.

The PNA index is also showing some potential. Generally speaking, I tell you that a negative PNA index is what we want for good storms. It indicates a trough off of the Pacific coast as opposed to a ridge. For most of the last extended storm sequence, you might note that we actually had a slightly positive PNA during most of the event. We had neither a trough or a ridge, it was a zonal flow across the Pacific that brought us storm after storm. That dip in the PNA over the last week indicates the trough that brought us colder air and much better ski conditions this week. Looking at the dotted section…very positive for a bit, then trending negative as we head into the last week of January.

So we are not doomed to have dry weather forever. Looking at the last few runs of the GFS model, they indicate that storms return around day 14 or so. That’s out in Fantasyland still…so don’t count on it just yet. But stop telling me it will never snow again. After a couple of days of sun, I’m ready for some pow turns again.