It All Comes Down To Snow Levels…

A season reset is approaching and the question of the day is whether it will be a flooding rain or feet of snow. It seems like at least once an hour someone is asking what my thoughts are on the subject. I have been looking at a whole lot of models over the last 36 hours since writing my last report. Things are looking better, especially after spending an amazing morning skiing spring corn on Sherwood again.

The east winds have finally abated and the temperatures were somewhat warmer. It was going to be such a treat to start the day on Summit without getting a dermabrasion treatment. But around 8:55 this morning, Summit came to a sudden halt with a clank of the emergency brake. A mechanical hold was announced sending streams of skiers and riders to hustle down to the Roundhouse lift. The Summit staff was moved to ABC and it opened just about 20 minutes later.

The Lakeview lift was also closed today, not related to the lift. This was more of an emergency snow farming project. Coverage along the Lakeview Ridgline and the tops of the Lakeview runs were getting very thin. Even this morning the models were still forecasting up to 20 inches of rain up to 10k feet. So the Lakeview closure today was all about bolstering the snowpack to survive a deluge. It should be back for tomorrow. Kangaroo was also closed today as these days it’s a race and race trining venue and that’s about it.

Thursday Update: Lakeview still showing closed today

I will continue to laud the grooming crew as all of that was excellent this morning. That said, every one of my laps in the first hour was testing out the “Sherwood Test Runs” trying to discern when to go to Sherwood. One thing to say about that is that the usual rules about softening do not apply. Typically, the corn season is in March or later, when the angle of the sun is much higher in the sky. So when we have a corn interlude during January, the low angle of the sun changes the order in which things soften.

At 10:10 I made my first lap on the Robin Hood bumps and it was skiable but scratchy. Sherwood East Face was not all that much better, but it did get me off of the very busy groomer. As the sun moves westward in the sky, you would expect that Sherwood Face would soften next. It did not. It turned out that what got great first was Chute Zero and other parts of South Face. This makes sense, as that terrain is much steeper, which works with the low angle of the sun. Chute Zero was fantastic today, beyond expectations, but also getting very spicy. Ultimately i put in 13 laps at Sherwood before taking a short food break and a couple of laps on Scott, also very good.

Tomorrow should be very much like today and we probably won’t have this sort of spring skiing for a long while. I plan to make the best of it. Then on Friday, everything changes as the storm moves in overnight.

Bring A Snorkel

That was originally the title for today’s post. I even had pre-generated the little AI graphic indicating that there have been some very real concerns about flooding rains, followed by large amounts of snow.

But while we were out skiing today, the models kept updating and by this afternoon, they are looking much more appealing, leading to the alternate headline of “It All Comes Down To Snow Levels…” The graphic generated by the Reno NOAA winter weather page is absolutely perfect for today:

Yeah, the thing is broken today. So that required reading the AFDs from the Sacramento and Reno NOAA offices. Yesterday and into the morning they were talking about snow levels running 8-10k feet this weekend and maybe dropping by Tuesday or Wednesday. This afternoon those discussions are instead mentioning snow levels running 6500-7500 feet this weekend. Still soggy, but resulting in the sort of base building snow we really need at this point in the season. Snow levels should drop sooner in the week and snow is in the forecast through the first week of February.

All of the models I am posting here today are the GEFS ensemble runs, which are generally more believable than single runs from the GFS, etc. First is the total precipitation (of any type) through next Friday:

There will likely be flooding concerns in Northern California if thats how it turns out. I did not have high hopes for snowfall amounts. I was pleasantly surprised.

If it was one model run showing that much snow I would not believe it. But below is the “model trend GIF” that shows the last 13 runs. You can see how it went from almost no snow to a whole lot of snow. I like the consistency in the trend over the last 18 hours.

So maybe this will turn out to be the season reset we needed. I’ve been working to convince you that an “average season” does not exist in the Sierra. It all comes down to the frequency of AR events during the snow season. Right as of now, the next week looks like a solid start for February. The second week of February looks dry again, but that is out in Fantasyland.

Thursday Morning update: The models trended snow levels slightly higher for the weekend, giving us a sloppy mix. It’s what we need for better bonding and to cover obstacles and moguls. The amounts of snow through next Friday are holding steady.

See you out there tomorrow…