A Rare Thing: A Third Day Of Mountain Closure

Alpine Meadows and Palisades Tahoe remained closed for a third day on Sunday, March 3rd. Not many people had a third day of closure on their bingo cards for this storm. I had previously predicted that Friday and Saturday would be closure days due to the intensity of the storm. I did not predict that there would be a third day of closure, as I don’t think it has happened in the time I have been a passholder at Alpine Meadows. Doing a quick Google search and asking around with a lot of people that would likely know, and there were no instances that anyone could remember since the 1982 avalanche.

So yesterday, when the announcement was made that there was going to be a push to get parts of the mountain open this morning, or by noon, it felt completely normal. But then it just kept snowing and remaining as windy as ever. So that caused me to take a closer look at what was expected for Sunday. Here’s the first concerning piece of information I found, a comment on the WeatherWest.com blog by Daniel Swain posted yesterday afternoon:

That caused me to take a look at the forecast specifics, and the easiest way to do that is to look at the point forecast for Alpine Meadows at NOAA, because the weather app on the iPhone is garbage. Here’s what the point forecast had for Sunday:

Sunday: Snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Widespread blowing snow. High near 20. Wind chill values as low as -8. Windy, with a west southwest wind 40 to 44 mph, with gusts as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 10 to 16 inches possible.

That is not exactly what the mountain ops team is looking for when it comes to completely resetting every part of the mountain to make it safe for employees and then guests. The snow continued at my house at about two inches per hour for much of the afternoon and evening. The winds continued to gust, causing numerous little blips that caused lights to flicker and internet streams to choke. Watching the winds on the remote data site, they continued to gust over 100 mph at Summit until eventually the sensor failed. Switching over to the Palisades sensor shows they are still cranking this afternoon.

So I was really in no hurry to get to the mountain this morning. It’s a well known fact that I am tired of powder pandemonium. I planned to ski the late afternoon shift if the mountain opened. It did not surprise me one bit to get the tweet that both mountains would remain closed today. We had another few hours of snow removal to do this morning and we still had not completed Bambi’s head on our current jigsaw puzzle.

So far, Palisades Tahoe has reported 6 feet of snow from this storm. There’s not details for which mountain, or what spot. But in comparison, I am at 5 feet at my house, at elevation 6000′. With the winds blowing so much there is no great way to really estimate the actual value. One ski resort reported “About three feet of snow, but zero feet along ridges which were scoured and 11 feet where that snow was deposited”. My final forecast for this storm was 6 to 8 feet at Alpine Meadows and we are there. One impressive number I saw was that 9.3 inches of water equivalency so far in this storm at the west shore.

So back to the three day closure question… A few people suggested that the floods of 1997 may have closed Alpine Meadows for more than two days. I wasn’t paying attention to Tahoe at the time, as we were living in Sierra City. I spent days as a volunteer firefighter and EMT responding to flood assist calls. Highway 49 was closed for weeks and skiing was not on my mind. The newspaper articles on Google indicate that much of Squaw Valley did close due to a sewage leak, but Alpine Meadows appeared to stay open.

That brings us back to 1982, the year of the big avalanche that killed 7 people on March 31. According to the newspaper articles I just reviewed, Alpine was closed for 10 days. There was a minimally attended soft opening of some lifts on April 10th, but it officially reopened on April 12th. Hopefully we never see an event like that again.

There have been multiple single day and two day closures, with the likely years being 10-11, 16-17 and, of course, last season.

As I am writing this post, it is once again dumping snow and the winds are cranking again with convective shower activity. This storm is not done with us yet. The thing is, this one is going to blend into the next one. The point forecast calls for 12-18 inches this afternoon and another 9-13 inches tonight. That is significant. The Blizzard Warning, which was extended, expires at midnight. It’s immediately replaced by a Winter Storm Warning from Monday through Wednesday. The next storm is much more tame, offering 12-18 inches of new snow. One thing to not like is that snow levels do go back upwards. Today they drop as low as 2000 feet. By tomorrow, they want to climb back to 5000 feet. Bummer.

We likely see a couple of dry days at the end of the week before another small storm could move in next weekend. Most of the models see a big flip for the second half of March. Here’s the 500mb Height Anomaly GIF for the next 16 days, which is a good way to look at troughs versus ridging. It clearly shows the current low, the next two weak lows and then ridging.

Season Extended Until Memorial Day and ??

The last time we talked about this, we were significantly behind normal snowpack. With the February Flip and now Mega March, we are on the way, or past, average snowfall. Consequently, the powers that be did announce last week that the season would be extended to Memorial Day or beyond. I would not bet on beyond, as we are nowhere near where we were last season.

There’s also not any details yet about what “open” means for us. Since Alpine Meadows was assimilated by the Borg, late season skiing was often only on the other side of the mountain. Last year, late season skiing did move to the Alpine Meadows side, due to the Funitel haul rope replacement project. People rejoiced. In talking to Palisades COO Dee Byrne at a BBQ last summer her thoughts were that late season skiing should happen at both mountains in future seasons. This makes sense, as last season showed the demand is there.

Also unanswered at this time is whether or not “open” means 7 days a week, or just three days a week. I sure hope it’s 7 days a week as I do love corn snow and spring skiing.

Maybe we will ski again tomorrow. Thanks to all of the mountain ops people for all that you do to wrangle all of this new snow so we have a safe place to play.

Fun Fact: The wind has gusted over 100 mph at the crest for nearly four straight days!