Measuring In Millimeters

It has been snowing, yes it has. But the forecast has only called for a few inches…and all that keeps falling is a few millimeters. For maybe two or three glorious runs this morning, Weasel Run had that fresh natural snow feeling. But as more skiers and riders arrived, the manmade snow below got churned up. The new snow soon got lost into the sugary snow on a firm surface once again.

Each day we go skiing with a smile on our faces, sliding on the snow and enjoying seeing friends we may not have seen for months. After about 5 runs this morning, I realized that the lift rides were often more entertaining than the ski runs themselves. Getting back to the bottom of TurboWeasel meant that you could carry on with those unfinished stories from summer adventures. I know, I am jaded, but the app says I have done 66 Weasel Runs over the last six days. I know I have missed a few due to forgetting to start the app in the locker room. Maybe the developers (very nice peeps!) will add an auto start feature.

Speaking of the Palisades Tahoe app, I noticed this week that the app has stopped tracking skier and rider speeds. This is a feature we thought should be removed years ago. Yes, there are still apps that allow that but most of the Jerry’s will not know about them. Thanks for taking a step toward making the mountain safer for all of us.

As I drove through town tonight, there was a solid snow shower falling. The ground was turning white quickly. But it was over before I arrived home, and a quick viewing of the Remote Data page at NOAA shows no new accumulation at Alpine Meadows yet. Tomorrow is another day, and yet more new friends will arrive at the mountain to take their first runs of the season. That alone is something to look forward to when no storms are materializing.

10pm update: It looks like three inches so far.

No new lifts appear to be scheduled at Alpine Meadows or Palisades for Friday. The wait will continue until Saturday. Who ever thought we would await the day that the Meadow chair would spin, just to give us a bit more variety? Yes, there will also be a lot of new terrain opening over at Palisades. The hope is that most casual visitors will head there for the weekend, hoping to get a glimpse of one of those famous pro skiers they saw in a marketing video. I’ll likely wait until the middle of next week, hoping for a quieter day on the other side of the mountain.

The forecast is looking a bit warmer for next week, which will not be ideal for snowmaking teams. That will possibly slow down the rate of terrain expansion, not just at Alpine Meadows, but at all mountains in Tahoe. Temperature inversions are not very helpful at this time of year.

There’s some rumbling in the longer term with the teleconnections moving into a better place. Taking a quick peek at the PNA Index, which has been stagnantly positive for weeks, the trend is to see a negative index about 10 days out. The longer range models start to introduce some stronger storms out there in Fantasyland, more than ten days out. That’s slightly better than no storms within the 16 day model runs. The good news is, it should be easy to get a parking reservation next Tuesday.

#allskiingisgoodskiing