Transition Days Are Difficult

It was the mother of all transition days today, the change to Daylight Savings Time. We lose an hour of sleep. Everyone is cranky about that. We get to the mountain and the shadows are still long with the sun lower in the sky than yesterday morning. Softening of the slopes is on a whole new schedule. That softening was complicated even more by a south wind blowing 30-40mph. That said as we arrived at the top of Summit for run number one, we were greeted by this amazing view of the shimmering Lake Tahoe. At that moment you can forget about most of the woes of the world.

As expected, the groomed slopes were skiing excellent and we sampled just about every route off of Summit and Roundhouse where a PistenBully had left its mark. The problem was that is what everyone else was doing too. Virtually nobody was skiing off piste. The wait times at Summit and Roundhouse ranged from 5 to 10 minutes, while the wait times at Scott, Sherwood and Lakeview all showed 0-2 minutes. That’s what you need to know. Around 11 my wife asked what run was next and my reply was “Costco and Trader Joes”. That transition from winter ski days to spring ski days is equally tough.

My ski buddy Reese did continue to ski so he supplied me with the rest of the report for the day. That long and short of it was that Sherwood finally began to soften around noon. That does not mean it was great by that time, just skiable. His first report on Sherwood Face was that it was soft but filled with solid lumps of frozen chunder from yesterday. So here is the updated Corn-O-Meter, courtesy of Reese:

On a funny note, he reported in later in the afternoon saying that Scotty’s Beam was a -1 🌽. I spent much of my time in Trader Joes pondering how to create a new Corn-O-Meter to account for negative corns. But clarifications were made and the rating for Scotty’s Beam (or the newer name “Beam Me Up Scotty”) was revised to a positive 1 🌽.

We should see some improvement in that corn cycle over the next two days now that the first storm has vaporized. We probably won’t get to really ripe corn except for south facing groomed slopes. But that is where the magic will be with the winter snow basically having been cooked yesterday.

Storm One Is Now Official

We have a Winter Storm Watch for Tuesday night through Thursday night. Here’s the one issued by the Reno office of NOAA:

So this is may not be the whopper it could have been. I cautioned on Friday that it was really more of a typical Sierra winter storm. There is not a strong atmospheric river associated with the storm, nor is there a blocking ridge that would cause it to stall over the Sierra. Also, this is a “watch”, not a “warning” so things might change.

The point forecast for Alpine Meadows mid mountain is just coming into range. Keep in mind that these numbers change with each model run. Here’s what they show now:

• Tuesday night: 1-2 inches
• Wednesday: 11-17 inches
• Wednesday night: 20-26 inches
• Thursday: Snow showers

Don’t fall in love with those numbers, as there is some significant model disagreement. They all fall in the range of 20-44 inches from storm one. I am surprised about the lack of mention of ridge gusts to 100mph that we usually see with storms. It’s fair to expect that there will absolutely be road issues, along with the potential for power issues and wind issues.

Monday Update: The point forecast numbers are now down about 10-20%. That brings them in line with the 2-3 foot totals written into the Winter Storm Watch by a human forecaster.

The Storm Door May Remain Open

There’s nothing huge right now after the first one. But it looks like the storm door will remain open for about 8-10 days with more small storms. The GIF below shows 24 hour snow totals over the next 13 days. You can see the orange indicating big snows, but successive waves after that are smaller refreshes. Let’s get through the first one before we start making predictions of what might happen beyond that 5 day believability window.

Thanks to Reese for supplying the afternoon details. I thought I was pretty sure I was okay with an afternoon in Reno until he starting texting me with corn ratings. That’s when the FOMO hit hard. See you out there tomorrow.