UPATED: Friday???

Update: Here’s what Palisades Tahoe posted as an update to their site tonight, indicating that a wider opening may be unlikely. That’s unfortunate…we do the best we can to read the tea leaves here.

My Magic 8 Ball is suggesting that Friday, December 5th could be the opening day for Alpine Meadows. Don’t get your hopes up too high, as we are not talking about all that much of the mountain. It’s going to take a lot of work, and frankly, good luck to get just TLC open to the mid-station with one WROD down Weasel. There’s finally been night temperatures cold enough to do some snow making the last two nights, but it has not been all that productive yet. Still, that’s better than the rain, fog and warm temperatures that hampered crews in November.

Here’s a look at the next 5 days at Alpine Meadows:

Snow makers will get a really good stretch of cold temperatures from Tuesday evening through Thursday morning with good overnight temperatures and a possibility of continuous snow making on Wednesday. It’s these sort of periods where things can really happen. The problem is it is not long enough. We need even more of that. In my last report, we were not seeing much if any probability of cooling, so seeing at least some cooling I will call it a win.

Here’s a look at what things look like as of this morning at Alpine Meadows, images via the PalisadesTahoe.com webcams.

The dirt is slowly getting covered and it’s robust enough to run snowmobiles up and down the mountain. Note that the focus is only on the main Weasel line. The right side line, or the Yeti line, will have to wait. If you click on the images to see an enlarged view, you will see that there is still quite a ways to go to make a sustainable slope that is ready for skier and rider traffic, as well as grooming equipment. Hoping for the best, but also know that it will take a miracle.

What About The Possibility For Natural Snow?

It’s not looking good, not at all. Bryan Allegretto at Open Snow called it “ugly” today. The GIF below compares the Euro, Canadian and the GFS models for total snowfall over the next ten days.

All of that white over the western states is not snowfall, it is the color of no snowfall in the models over the next 10 days. I’m not even bothering to show the 16 day GIF of pressure system anomalies, as it looks like just about all high pressure blocking of the Really Resistant Ridge™ through mid-December. We keep saying that something has to give, but it has not happened yet, other than a small amount of cold air slipping in to allow for some snow making.

I’ve put in 9 short days of skiing at Mount Rose since they opened their Lakeview lift. The holiday period was a challenge, with a lot more people on the few open slopes than I wanted to be around. I actually found myself okay with having my limited pass blacked out on Friday and Saturday so I had a good excuse to avoid the junk show. It was much better this morning, with just a small crowd of regulars on the hill. That said, I am taking the next few days off to go camping on the coast…in December…because we can. Temperatures are supposed to be in the mid-60’s, at least once you get through the fog shrouded Central Valley.

The Magic 8 Ball will either be right or wrong. I am not sure that anybody knows for sure just yet. Tomorrow is the first Tuesday of the season to make a parking reservation for the upcoming weekend. I will be making one “just in case”.