Bird Is The Word: Alpine Meadows will be opening tomorrow with limited terrain: Roundhouse, TLC, Meadow and Subway. Summit and Scott could open later but winds are still high tomorrow. Figure on a delayed start. The official blog says 10:30am. Also this is not blower pow yet. – Mark
I am taking a break from snow blowing and shoveling. Alpine and Squaw were closed again today. This is a blessing and not a surprise. The amount of snow we are receiving, and the various consistencies that are piling up, along with the extreme wind conditions, are creating very high avalanche danger conditions. I can hear the Gazex units being used to trigger slides, and I think I have also heard other blasting occurring on the slopes. Obviously, I cannot see the mountain, nor have I attempted to leave the house as the roads are a mess.
The Palisades app appears to indicate that 24” of snow fell between 8am yesterday and 8am today. I think we received at least 17” the day before so the total for the storm might be around 40 plus inches at the base areas. The first part of these storms we saw warmer temperatures with very high winds. I noted a gust of wind at the top of Alpine last night at 9:15pm of 184 miles per hour. The air temperature at this time has dropped to 12 degrees at the Alpine ridge top. Winds are blowing between 35 and 45 miles per hour this afternoon. Lighter snow and less wind this afternoon, but snow is still dumping and piling up.
High winds and wet snow make for difficult shoveling. I shoveled my entry stairs yesterday and today. Each shovel weighed a ton.
Our power went out last night as well, but it was restored before noon this morning. I am crossing my fingers in hopes it does not go off again. The house gets pretty cool when the power is off.
That is all I have for today. Once the storm is over and the slopes are safe, we should have some nice light powder to ski.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
stay safe Andy!
Oh, NOW I get the amount of hand shoveling you need to do at your house for the steps. OMG. And, it seems to me that the wind blows in the direction to fill the steps in…for extra enjoyment. Lucky dog!
We are somewhere around 40 inches at my humble abode in Truckee. It’s so tough to measure with so much wind deposition.
I would emphasize a couple of things. Most of this snow pack has been pretty heavy. The Snow Lab noted that the crystals are much smaller than normal leading to the denser back and lower than expected totals. Water equivalent wise, it is right on forecast.
It’s also supposed to be very cold and very windy tomorrow. The point forecast mentions windchills around -8°. I would not be surprised to see Summit not open.
Would like to know where Alpine takes their snow measurements. I live in Alpine at abt 6600’ and we awoke to 3 ft of new this morning. It was pretty uniform a-x our property so not an odd ball drift. My neighbor, a lifelong Alpine resident measured abt 3 ft as well. I’ve only had our house for 36 years but I can’t recall a storm wuite like this one …. Miserable to shovel dense layers topped with 2” of downy fluff. BTW saw your stairs and empathize…. I have 15 of them …. If only someone would come up with a stair clearing snowblower!
I just received a notice that they are trying to open the lower mountain at 10:30 tomorrow. Burr!!