Cookies ‘N Cream

That’s what was going on at Alpine Meadows today. On the frontside of the mountain you could choose groomed slopes that quickly broke up into cookies, or you could head to Sherwood and choose creamy corn snow pretty much right at 9am. Although there was a freeze overnight, the temperatures warmed rapidly as soon as the sun rose resulting in abnormally warm temperatures on the mountain, considering it is February 27th. There was some dissension in our group this morning as to whether the cookies or the cream was the better experience. If you have read many of my reports, you know what side of the mountain I chose.

Those cookies, or broken up chunks of ice, are the result of the mountain grooming crews providing the best experience possible. The freakishly warm temperatures cause the snow surface to turn to slush, which then refreezes overnight. Modern snowcats include tiller attachments that break up that icy surface and then smooth it out again. When we have just one of those warm days, that repeated tilling process breaks cookies into smaller chunks. But because we have had day after day of refreezing, those cookies don’t get a chance to be pulverized.

Looking at the base area temperatures of 44° when the lifts turned this morning, I lobbied to go immediately to Sherwood. But alas, I was a team player and did three laps on Summit first. Sunspot was the chef’s kiss first thing this morning because the predicted east winds never materialized. But Sunspot only makes up about 1/3 of a Summit run and that other 2/3 was not my cup of tea, knowing the conditions would be premium on Sherwood.

Sherwood did offer some great conditions once I arrived. The Robin Hood groomer was perfection top to bottom until a found a cookie or two 25 feet from the corral. That said, the off piste Sherwood Face and South Face areas took some work today. While the snow itself rated four corns, the excessive heat did cause some over ripening, or slush formation. That meant that late afternoon skiers and riders were able to leave some large ruts and chunder that you don’t normally see during a great corn cycle. That same process likely happened this afternoon. We left Sherwood around noon as things were getting very thick.

Scott and Lakeview were just a couple of hours behind, both getting pretty slushy by 1:30. Heading back to the frontside of the mountain, there were still a lot of cookies mixed in with the not quite corn snow and conditions were feeling very sticky. Basically it’s just too warm for ideal spring skiing. How warm is too warm? Here’s the remote data sensors from mid afternoon (1-2pm):

In addition to not being ideal for ski conditions, the snow pack is suffering. The remote sensor at the base of the mountain was as high as 74″ after the last storm, it’s now at 67″. You can note that there’s a lot more rocks appearing off piste on the lower mountain. The groomed runs are holding up thanks to being able to move snow around. Things are looking very thin at the top of Scott due to a lot of sun, as is the loading area at Lakeview.

As I came back into Truckee this afternoon, the temperature was 64° along West River St. Yikes! I am almost certain that I heard the first grouse of the season on the Scott lift as well as the first call of a “cheeseburger” bird. I also spied more than one person skiing in shorts today.

Heading Back Into “False Winter”?

Typically at this time of year, we have great winter conditions with an occasional round of “false spring”. But this is the year where we really have not had much of a winter. Much of the snowpack we have on the mountain is really due to just a couple of bigger storms. We are two days away from meteorological spring and we have not had a true Gulf Of Alaska low this winter. It’s been a string of inside sliders and weak zonal flow systems that have brought high elevation snows. So a return to any sort of winter is likely to be short lived.

Over the last couple of weeks, the one data point that showed a potential for a pattern change was the PNA Index, which indicates the presence of a trough in the Pacific Ocean. It’s the primary piece that is needed to bring us bigger storms with more cold air. For two weeks, it showed the possibility of a strongly negative PNA by March 1st. But looking at the PNA Index forecast today, it’s already significantly toned down.

Today it’s showing strongly positive on March 1 and maybe just barely negative in another week. This is not the kind of sign that would lead to any March Miracles. You can see that we were in the same place in late January, and that was not a snowy period. It was a cold and icy period. Ugh.

Below is a GIF that shows the pressure anomalies over the next 10 days (the believable part of the forecast). The incoming lows are a bit more focused on the southern part of the state. Tahoe would be on the northern end of those lows, which results in a drier flow and more east winds. These next three storms do not look like huge snow makers. They should have low snow levels. The Sunday storm looks to bring snow to the foothills.

As far as estimated totals, we are looking at measuring in inches of snow for each storm not feet. The GIF below compares 10 day snow totals for the GEFS and CMCE. The GEFS is slightly more optimistic, showing up to 24 inches of snow spread over the next 10 days. The CMCE calls for more like 12 inches in the North Tahoe area over that time period.

We are now 98 days into the Alpine Meadows ski season and I will continue to find fun in just about all of them. Theoretically we see temperatures that are about 5° cooler tomorrow, I hope it happens. See you out there.