It seemed like a good time for a dad joke on this last day of 2023. It’s been a memorable year at Alpine Meadows: Buried in snow for the first 5 months of the year, then mud skiing season in June and July, followed by what I have heard is the slowest start to the season in 50 years. Something else that is memorable is that Alpine Meadows was open for skiing 205 days this calendar year. I think that may qualify for some record book. By my count, I was there for 199 of those days.
Today, however, was not a memorable day. It was another in a long streak of repetitive ski runs, sugary snow, icy moguls and defensive skiing. While driving home this afternoon, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, came on SXM radio, which was hilarious as that was the song that played in my head every time I was negotiating one of the busier part of the mountain this morning. I don’t need to tell you but they were: Rock Garden, Dance Floor, Upper Weasel One and Weasel Run. While it is possible to find some less populated parts of the mountain, eventually you have to take at least one of those runs back to a lift.
That said, it was incrementally less crowded today with 10-15% fewer cars in the parking lot. Therefore, I skied twice as much as I have the last few days. Theoretically, you might think that it may get less crowded over the next week. That’s probably not totally true. There are a lot of schools that are still out, and I talked to several folk today that are just now starting their ski vacation.
Yesterday’s official operations blog mentioned that with colder temperatures, that teams would be getting serious about snowmaking again. According to the blog, the focus would be on reinforcing terrain that is already open. Over the hill that may just be the case. I am not totally hip to all of the usual snowmaking locations on the other side, but it seems like they have covered what they typically can cover. Maybe one of our readers has more info on that…
At Alpine Meadows, such is not the case. Snowmaking was going strong today on West Runout, Charity (aka Red Green), and the lower section of Werners (aka Blue). It looked like guns were also being set up on the upper part of Werners too. That is a huge deal, as getting those open would give several routes down from Roundhouse and Summit…and potentially open terrain in Wolverine Bowl. That would be cause for celebration.
We noted some other new terrain open this morning. The upper portion of Loop Road was groomed today, just not in its normal flowy way. But it’s another step that would allow the opening of the Alpine Bowl Chair.
An Improving Forecast
I already mentioned the colder weather this week, which will allow for snow making, possibly even some 24 hour periods. There’s also some signs that an overall pattern change that I have been highlighting just may come into fruition. In the near term, there are two storms in the models this week, currently around Wednesday and Saturday. Neither of those look particularly strong at the minute. The model trend for the GEFS ensembles has been to tone it down a bit over the last 8 model runs. If I had to call it right at this moment, 2-6 inches of snow for Wednesday and 8-12 inches for Saturday, but that one is still outside of the range for certainty.
But there’s some signs we’re getting into a more stable pattern of storms. Here’s the PNA Index. Every ensemble member shows a negative PNA over the next 16 days. Looking back all of that way to beginning of the season, you can see that we have basically been in a positive PNA situation since the season started.
The Madden Julian Oscillation also gets more important as we head into the core of winter. The MJO heads into Phases 2 & 3 over the next two weeks. Those are favorable for west coast precipitation, meaning there is a good source of moisture for storms. So we have a trough in the Pacific, we have a source of moisture, and that is the start of a recipe for AR events. It’s all a matter of whether we can get an organized jet stream to bring it our way. It was a splitting jet stream that sent the last storm sailing both north and south of us this week, resulting in the angry inch of snow. I am anxious to get off the groomed slopes and away from the masses.
If you have read this far, then you will be one of the first to know that I just restocked the limited edition shiny “holographic” Unofficial Alpine stickers. The boss says this is the last order for a while. Head to the Stickers page to order yours. The last set ran out in less than a day.
Have a safe New Year folks. I’ll likely be celebrating on New York time, or even Bermuda time, because there is skiing to be done tomorrow. See you next year.
I kept trying to find the Dad joke, but finally realized I used it saying goodbye to Clancy after lunch and I’m just a Mom…
Great…now Danger Zone is stuck in my head like an ear worm.
I totally forgot I was supposed to title this report as “123123” Missed opportunities!
Also roughly half of new sticker shipment is sold….