Alpine Meadows is reporting 2 inches of new snow this morning and the webcam photo below verifies that it looks like the wet snow we want this time of year.
The models for this week and next week have not really changed. The Wednesday night and Thursday morning wave of the current storm still seem to offer the best chance for a significant snowfall. BA at OpenSnow.com still shows hope for about a foot of new snow in the Tahoe basin, with snow levels below lake level. This will be a helpful boost to resorts looking to open Friday. BA has good coverage of this storm, which continues to say the same as our last post. He just has more of those fancy science words.
It’s the extended forecast that get more interesting. Paul at TahoeWeatherBlog.com was the first local blogger to point out that the 30 day Euro model has a lot of moisture, with more than 10 inches of precip in the Tahoe area.
That got me interested in looking at the models too. The extended range of the GFS is looking for a big storm the first week the first week of December. Right now, it’s showing another few of inches of precip, so if we get the temperatures right, it could be a “feet of snow” event. That certainly would get us out of our “not enough snow funk”.
All of this should be no surprise to anyone that read BA’s seasonal analysis back in early October. He has always called for a slow start to the season, with things beginning to ramp up in December. Those extended models are still pretty far out, but the Euro model did a very good job of handling the extended at this time last year. Fingers crossed, cars washed, ice cubes flushed and ready to burn some skis….
I live and surf in Santa Cruz and unfortunately we’re not seeing any decent winter swells that are produced by wonderful storms that don’t seem to be materializing. My snow and water sticks seem to be gathering too much dust for my taste.