Ski season at Alpine Meadows is theoretically getting closer. With the opening of limited terrain at Mount Rose last Friday, the pressure is ramped up on other ski areas to get terrain open. Mount Rose opened the Lakeview lift for the season on November 8th, so it’s not a great look for other mountains to be waiting until November 27th to open terrain. The rumors started flying that there could be an earlier opening for the TLC lift (aka Hotter Wheels or TurboWeasel) at Alpine Meadows.

The problem is there’s not much agreement over what that date might actually be, as there are variations on what “opening” actually means. The past practice over the last decade has been to open some terrain early solely for use by race teams, and for training new personnel. That is generally a week sooner than the public opening, where things are open to people with an Ikon pass, or that are willing to pay some ungodly sum for a day ticket just to make some turns on snow. We have heard both the 22nd and the 15th bandied about as possibilities. Looking at the webcams this morning, that seems optimistic.

It’s been a challenging week for mountain ops people that are in the business of making machine made snow. Two weeks ago, we had some great overnight lows and a couple of very cold days. But then we slipped into the bad place, where we have an inversion. An inversion happens when there’s not a lot of air movement. Cold air sinks into the valleys and warmer air reigns over much of the mountain. That makes for great snowmaking conditions at the Truckee airport, but not where we want to ski. As an example here’s the temperatures from last night at the base of Roundhouse:

Yeah those temperatures are way above freezing. While it is possible to make snow at temperatures above freezing through the magic of physics, it works best if the relative humidity is low. But we are not there, you can see that the relative humidity ran around 33%, which is not condsidered dry. That means the snowmakers have been idle way more than what we would like to see. The end result is a shot of Weasel this morning, showing no snow making happening:

Yes, it looks almost identical to the snap I posted two days ago from the newly discovered Chalet Cam. Not ideal but what can you do? For most of you it means putting a hold on your thoughts of skiing and enjoying biking, hiking, watching football, getting a jump on Christmas shopping or whatever it is that you like. You know I have been out skiing at Mount Rose the last three days. I am taking a break today to let this storm pass through, as the winds were gusting from 40 to 75 mph.(They ended up announcing a closure for the day.) Back at it tomorrow, hopefully with some new snow?

If I had to take a guess, the 27th is still a more likely date for skiing at either Alpine Meadows or Palisades Tahoe. With that in mind you’ll be pleasantly surprised if it happens sooner.

Update: The cats are out track packing Weasel today and suddenly there’s a bit more hope. We have a possible 4-6 inches of snow coming in the next wave and some reasonable cold temps for snowmaking. Then there’s this from the afternoon forecast discussion out of NOAA SAcramento:

Snow total are forecasted to be 6 to 12 inches, locally up to 18 to 24 at the higher peaks above 5000 feet. NBM probability of amounts greater than 12″ is 65-90% chance for elevations above 6000 feet.

Fingers crossed!

What About The Potential For Natural Snow?

We have a storm moving in this morning that should bring some natural snow to Tahoe. The point forecast for Alpine Meadows shows 4 to 8 inches for today. The weather forecast discussion mentioned a good chance of up to a foot at the crest. This is good but not enough. Typically it takes a good 3 to 4 foot dump to get the ball rolling. A second storm rolls in around Thursday and currently looks to be similar to today’s impulse. Possibly a third system is out there for the weekend. Typically it takes a lot of these little systems to add up to anything.

The problem is that if we get a foot, mountain ops can’t get out there and “track pack” it with a snowcat as it’s not deep enough. Without that compaction, new snow is more likely to blow away, melt between storms or just sublimate (where snow evaporates). The moral of the story is that three one foot storms are not the same as one three-foot storm.

Below is a GIF comparing the last 13 runs of the GEFS model for total snowfall over the next two weeks. Some show the potential for as much as two feet of snowfall and all show the potential for a foot of snowfall. So we are going to see some snow, but at this point in time it does not look like it is as much as we want.

The larger question is if we get enough cold air in place to allow snowmaking teams to get back on the job. These weaker storms often do not carry as much cold air and a combination of “sort of cold” and “sort of wet” is not ideal for creating machine made snow. And speaking of “rumors and challenges”, the rumor is that over the ridge at the other place, there was a large water pipe that burst, causing the delayed start to their snowmaking. It’s a rumor and not necessarily confirmed. But that is the story I have heard from multiple people.

In the longer term, there is very little model agreement as we get beyond a week out. The best way to show that is with the PNA Index which is a quick look at whether there is ridging or troughing in the Pacific. Here’s the view this morning:

The red lines indicate the 16ish different models in the ensemble. Slightly more than half indicate that we return to a ridge and the rest indicate a trough, or stormier pattern. The “mean” at the top being a positive number is not what we want. So the picture is not clear, meaning we are not in a great winter pattern just yet.

The Power Of The People

In other skiing related news, there was an important announcement from Homewood Mountain Resort last week. We reported last month that Homewood would not be operating this season, after a key investor pulled funding for the mountain. A proposal to turn Homewood into a private resort for investors was extremely unpopular with local residents and those that have enjoyed the mountain as an alternative to the “big box” resorts owned by Alterra and Vail. The public pressure was enough to get the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to take note, issuing an opinion that supported the idea that public access to the ski area was vital.

The stunning announcement this week was not that Homewood will open this season. it’s too late for that, as many of their employees have moved on to other jobs, including at Alpine Meadows. Instead Homewood announced their intention to always stay open as a public resort, and that is a win for the “power of the people.”

The announcement was just the start. A page on the Homewood website details their commitment to the community offering discounts of as much as 35% to locals on season passes, free skiing to local students on the honor roll and a variety of other things that connects the mountain to their community. You have got to love that, having a mountain ownership group step back and realize that they have a role in the community that goes way beyond just being an investment vehicle for billionaires.

This would be the appropriate time to mention that the Placer County supervisors are set to approve the plan for the village at Palisades Tahoe on November 19th. The meeting is scheduled at 9am at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach. The supes have shown time and time again that they care about nothing other than a thirst for more tax dollars…but the Homewood saga above does give hope that community does matter. Maybe voices will be heard this time?

On a smaller scale, someone reminded Palisades Tahoe that they are a ski area, and they now have an opening date on their splash screen rather than screaming about Tahoe Live…about the most un-Tahoe thing I can imagine.

It’s a good day for a car wash, buying new lawn furniture or starting to reroof your house…

❄️ ThinkSnow ❄️