Follow The Flakes!

No, this is not a plea that you subscribe to Unofficial Alpine Meadows. It’s also not a plea that you follow myself or Andy around the mountain. In the spirit of accurate journalism, sometimes we make poor choices. Just in the last 48 hours I sent people to Hot Wheels Gully, Gentian Gully and Tower 19 – none of which were great for skiing. Today was a day to watch the strong winds and see where the flakes were landing.

The Wind Was Bad

From one perspective, the wind was bad this morning. Southwest winds were gusting 50-70 mph in the morning hours. That was enough to put Scott and Lakeview on wind hold this morning. The end result was longer lines at some of the other lifts, Summit in particular. The status of the shiny boxes was almost comical this morning with multiple status changes. It went from closed to delayed to wind hold to closed then delayed before finally opening just before noon.

For much of the morning, we hot lapped Roundhouse, since it offered great off piste skiing and the shortest line. In almost ten runs before lunch, we never skied a groomed run other than Rock Garden, and a test of the newly groomed Ladies Slalom.

The first grooming of any zone is usually somewhat rough. There’s still some brush and rock to contend with until groomers get more time in this zone. Otherwise, we played the greatest hits of Roundhouse, enjoying soft wintery turns away from the busy groomed slopes.

The Wind Was Fantastic

When the wind is right after a recent snowfall, you can get amazing wind buff, or just nice wind deposition if you follow the flakes. In the morning hours, we found nice wind deposits on the right side of Rolls and Knolls and also in the Yellow chair line. Gunners Cirque was probably also in fine form this morning. Sure you could see the winds blowing into the D Chutes in the morning, but the overly full corral at Summit kept me away. Fortunately, being the end of a long week for many, the mountain cleared out after a quick lunch.

It was hard to go wrong anywhere in the D Chutes this afternoon. My favorite jam was D4.5, and you will just need to extrapolate that location. That was just fantastic. Even better, the wind continued to blow that snow down Wolverine Bowl, keeping the fun going. As a super special bonus, Blue Run (aka Werners) was also skiing great. Rather than the choppy little moguls it usually gets, today it grew these nice large rounded bumps with a lot of wind blown snow softening the ride all of the way to Sandy’s Corner.

Not everything fared equally from this windblown snow. One place that often loads up nicely is Gentian Gully. It’s true that those first big moguls as you near the end of Filson’s Freeway were filled in and nice and soft. Three turns later, out of the wind and Gentian was not so pleasant. I have never seen so many moguls. Also, variable conditions due to shade versus sun and snow melting off the trees.

We have survived the last big peak period of the season, as in the busiest of holidays. From here on out, things are generally quieter, until they are not. As an example, the very popular Alpenglow Backcountry Demo is happening next Saturday at Alpine Meadows. That event generally brings a lot of people, and why not, with a chance to demo a lot of different equipment in one day at no charge. Following that, we have the Tahoe Snowfest, various college breaks and spring breaks. Maybe we will even get at least one more big burst of winter.

Not Much Winter Weather In The Current Forecast

If you’re looking for snow this week or next, you will be disappointed. Right now, the forecast is windy then wet then nothing phenomenal.

I am hoping that tomorrow we see more of what we saw today, just with fewer people on the mountain. It should stay dry through ski time tomorrow. There is a slight chance of snow tomorrow night, but by the time the ski area opens Tuesday, expect that it will be raining.

The good news is that the ridging has continued to push things to the north and west, almost far enough to keep us dry. The Bay Area and the valley could stay dry. Rainfall in our area will be due to the orographic lifting in the Sierra. The amounts of rain have been reduced again and the winds also seem to be reduced. Here’s the GEFS for rainfall through Wednesday.

Four days ago, that was showing more like 4-5 inches of rain possible. Yesterday the forecast discussion called for winds at the crest to exceed 100 mph. Now it seems like 50-70 mph is more likely with the ridge building. That means that Summit may continue to operate if you care to ski in the rain on Tuesday or Wednesday. Snow levels are expected to rise to over 9000 feet by Tuesday and remain there on Wednesday.

Hopefully the mountain ops teams will get a chance to groom everything that can be groomed after operations tomorrow, as groomed snow seems to do better with rain. As I mentioned in my last reports, the rain will lead to icier conditions later in the week, but it will also accelerate the corn cycle in the sunnier aspects of the mountain. That transition was already notable today.

The GIF below is the GFS ensemble for pressure anomalies over the next 16 days. We are mostly in high pressure regime through that time. There are some weak impulses moving through at times.

There is some hope though. Looking at the PNA Index, we have been in a good negative place the last week, hence the storms. The Index does actually stay negative and takes a little dip as we get into March…maybe there is a storm out there waiting for us….

See you out there tomorrow…skiing is fun.