UPDATED: Short Range Looks Not Good, Long Range Looks Better

Jump to update...looks like no Alpine Meadows until the 27th 🙁

We are about to head into a very challenging time as Tahoe skiers and riders. The RRR is going to be moving at the speed of a snail as it moves out of the area. That means were are looking at a good six to nine days of clear snow falling in most of Tahoe before we might see a shift to a snowy pattern. Here’s the most simplistic look as seen in the Apple weather app today:

I do know that most of you would rather be seeing snowfall icons there rather than rain shower icons. You’re going to need to be patient as we head into this week and next weekend. The snow level predictions from the Reno office only go out about three days.

The only good thing to share about the potential for rainfall is that we are not expecting to see the same sort of flooding rains that has been seen in Washington state over the last week. Looking through next Saturday, the warmest part of this rainy spell, only about an inch of rain is expected in the Tahoe region. That should not result in a complete washout of the current snowpack, natural or manmade.

While this is not a strong AR event, it shares some characteristics in how the jet stream will be the division between warmer air to the south and colder air to the north. In the Climate Prediction Center graphics below for the 6 to 10 day and 8 to 14 day precipitation forecasts, you can see the difference. The darker green shades show the probability of wetter than average conditions, which offers a reasonable prediction of where the mini-AR firehose (garden hose?) will be aligned. I added red arrows to show the difference in position.

If the yellow star indicates the approximate position of Alpine Meadows, you can see where we are on the warm side until about Christmas eve before we get to the colder side of things. That said, it’s not going to be super cold. We will likely still see snow levels just barely making it to the base of the mountain until even later in the picture. If I had to take a guess, 7-8k by Sunday and 6-7k by the following Wednesday.

Here’s the 16 day total snowfall GIF, which has remained remarkably consistent. If you watch frame by frame, we don’t get much snowfall building until about Christmas eve and beyond. You can see the dates in the upper left corner.

There’s No Guarantee That This Will Happen

We constantly caution here that the models don’t always do a great job beyond day 5 and that anything beyond day 10 is Fantasyland. So here’s the caveats:

• The rainy part of the forecast is within the 6 day window so we are fairly certain that will happen.

• The snowy part of the forecast is a bit closer to fantasyland, so it’s a bit more suspect. That said, it has been there for about 18 of the last 21 model runs of the GEFS. So we do have some decent consistency.

• Daniel Swain PhD is a little less convinced in his latest post at Weatherwest.com. He thinks we won’t see significant cooling until the end of December. Then again the week after Christmas is the last week of December. End of December?

What Does This Mean For Alpine Meadows?

They have been able to make some snow each night in the Tiegel zone near the bottom of the mountain. The inversion works for that. There’s been temperatures near 40° most nights from the Chalet up that prevents snowmaking, so it’s quite thin there. Hopefully the work they have done at the bottom of the mountain will counteract the possibility of problematic snow levels – at least for the TLC lift. Roundhouse and Summit are not looking pretty.

I would not count on anything until we get a better handle on snow levels for the weekend….

UPDATE: It’s Tuesday and not just any Tuesday. It’s the first Super Tuesday, where we would normally make parking reservations for the first holiday week. When reservations were released at noon, reservations are only available at Palisades from the 24th until the 26th of next week (Wed-Fri). No reservations were available at Alpine Meadows (other than paid reservations, which I believe is a glitch in the matrix). Hunting around on the parking information page, I finally found this graphic:

So based on that there is not an expectation at the minute of Alpine Meadows opening before the 27th, unless a further announcement is made. Sigh. Updating the update: it now shows reservations beginning at Alpine Meadows on the 26th. Presumably you can male those reservations on Tuesday the 23rd.

Skiing at Rose has kept me sane a few days a week with 17 days logged so far. That said I am approaching the holiday blackout period. My year to date bike miles are already 60% higher than any other year. Rain the rest of the week may put a damper on those two activities, as well as plans for any coastal camping. What’s next…

❄️ Think Snow ❄️