It’s Feeling Like Fall

It’s feeling like fall, and it should because September 1st is the start of meteorological fall. I know this is still confusing, as even my family still tells me that the autumnal equinox is still three weeks away. But the length of our daylight hours is just one factor that affects changes in the weather at this time of year. Take a look at the Alpine Meadows forecast to see what I mean:

High temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s at Alpine Meadows definitely does not give off summer vibes this week. I’ve noticed while mountain biking this week that colors are starting to show in the upper elevations. I took a little tour in our yard yesterday and saw signs of fall as well.

Looking at the weather models, there is a lot of activity in the Pacific ocean this week. Off of the coast of Mexico, tropical storms and hurricanes have been forming and following the tradewinds to the east. Meanwhile a low pressure system is dropping out of the Gulf of Alaska, potentially pulling one of those systems northward into Southern California. If you are just a casual weather fanatic, you may get suckered in by amateur forecasters calling for a major hurricane to hit the region next weekend. Remain calm. While the waters off of southern California are warmer than ever recorded, they are still not warm enough to support a strong tropical storm or hurricane. There’s some models showing a lot of rain could be pulled into California, most of the models send it back out into the Pacific.

Then there’s that Gulf of Alaska low pressure system to the north, which brought the first snowfall of the season to Crystal Mountain in Washington and most of the Canadian resorts in British Colombia.

That same low pressure system continues to move south this week into Northern California. It’s a pretty impressive low for this time of the year. It will almost certainly bring good rainfall to the north coast. In the Tahoe region, we mostly will see much cooler temperatures and wind this week. The chances of rainfall are only about 30% going on the latest model runs. Snow levels would be about 10,000 feet, so a bit of white over Mount Rose is possible.

Looking again at the GIF above, in the second week of the forecast run, we see a return to high pressure. Google tells me that the politically correct term for this is now “second summer.” This is not unusual at all. Both fall and spring are times of change where the weather can flip flop from one season to the next. Unpredictable and variable are the terms that come to mind. We almost certainly will see another heat wave or two before we get into a cooler and wetter pattern.

We have been fortunate to avoid any major fires in northern California this season and hopefully that will continue. All of the various fire folk have been hitting all fire starts quickly and catching them before they get out of hand. Fingers and toes crossed.

The countdown is sounding better. As of today, we are at 73 days out from when we usually see either Mammoth or Mount Rose opening for the season. For Palisades Tahoe and Alpine Meadows it is 86 days until the previously announced opening date. You can almost start calling that “just two months away.” Most all of the big ski shops start their pre-season sales this weekend…and the ski dreams are becoming a daily occurrence.

Off to ride a mountain bike…