I Love It When The Models Get It Right

In my last post, I pointed out that we would be enduring some wet and windy storms before we saw snowfall. We have been getting hammered with both the last few days. But the colder air is eventually getting here, just like it appeared out in Fantasyland in the models a week ago. Most of the weather community is now on board with this solution. Even better, the transition to cold and snowy looks like it might happen a day or two earlier than Christmas eve.

The wind and rain has done a number on the current snowpack, more than expected. The temperatures and the amount of rain were higher than forecast. Temperatures rose to the upper forties and low 50’s. Combine that with strong winds and you can very effectively melt snow. Here’s the webcam views at Alpine Meadows this morning, courtesy of the Palisades Tahoe website:

Fortunately the cooling comes in the way we want it for base building, gradually going from rain to slop to wet snow. This means we get a base that wont’s blow away in the first east wind event. It also does a better job of protecting the bases of skis and snowboards as the base builds. Here’s the next five days for mid mountain at Alpine Meadows.

Once we get into Christmas eve, things get serious, with snow levels potentially dropping to lake level or lower. As it looks now, it’s a multiple wave snow event Wednesday into Saturday. It’s going to cause all of the usual chaos on the roads with people trying to get to Tahoe for skiing, or trying to get back home for Christmas. The amateur weather bloggers and influencers have definitely gotten into “hype mode”. Here’s just two examples:

Generally speaking, you can cherry pick a specific model or model run to come up with numbers like that. But I’ve gotten better at this game of forecasting, choosing the more conservative ensemble runs and seeking out model consistency before reporting. So here’s what’s current in the models for total snowfall into the 27th. Click on any one of them to biggerize and go into gallery mode.

The range there goes from 31 to 78 inches of snow near the crest by Saturday. I think it’s reasonable at this point to consider 4-5 feet of new snow as a reasonable possibility. If we get more snow than that, it will make getting terrain open extremely difficult. There’s ramps and roads that need to be built, not to mention a heckuva lot of rope line, sleds and signage to get out on the mountain. It’s not as simple as just turning on the lifts.

Palisades Tahoe did open new terrain today, including the First Venture chair and the Exhibition chair to the mid station. It seems like yesterday may have been a better day to open that terrain being that it was dry. It’s wet and wild over the next two days at 6200′. I do have parking reservations at the northern annex for the 24th through the 26th, but It’s very unlikely I will use them. Getting more terrain open to meet demand is going to be a real challenge given the forecast and I am not sure I need to be a part of a huge crowd and very limited terrain. Skiing on Christmas day has been a tradition in my family, but I only have to look back to 2021 to find a Christmas that we missed due to stormy weather. It happens.

The Latest Guesses For Alpine Meadows

They’re not really guesses anymore, as an “official” operations blog was posted this week that tells us a little bit more about what they are thinking. That said, they are also just making guesses as it all depends on how much snow falls and how quickly the mountain ops teams can get the mountain in shape for anxious visitors. Here’s what was posted on the 17th regarding Alpine Meadows:

Pending weather and snow conditions, a potential upper-mountain expansion is targeted for Saturday, December 27. This may include Gold Coast at Palisades Tahoe, as well as terrain out of the Alpine Base Area, including Summit, TLC Mid, and Roundhouse. All openings remain subject to weather, snowpack development, and operational readiness.

The other clue that is out there is that the parking reservations calendar currently shows that reservations might be available on the 26th at Alpine Meadows, although you can’t make that reservation just yet. One would guess that Friday would be more of a limited opening, perhaps just with TLC to the mid-station. Either someone in the marketing department is going to read this and eliminate that day from the calendar shortly, or a correction will be made Tuesday, when it will be time to make reservations for the entire second week of the holiday period…or we will actually see a limited opening at Alpine Meadows on the 26th.

We’re basically looking at a one month delay to the start of the ski season at Alpine Meadows. For most of us it is just skiing, and we have occupied ourselves with other activities for the moment. I want to take a moment to think positive thoughts for all of the employees that have been affected by the delayed opening. Some will do okay because they can claim unemployment or have received assistance from local agencies like the Sierra Community House. It’s still not enough to make sure they all have a happy holiday, especially when they get called in for overtime to prep the mountain when it does start snowing.

It might just be time to locate our snow shovels and fire up the snow blower…but I am petrified that it may jinx things.

Update: Friday afternoon at 6900′ Snow levels will probably range higher at times this weekend, but this is encouraging.