It’s Been A Week Since We Last Talked About The Weather

This time there’s a couple of things to talk about. It’s been a depressing thing to stare at the weather models since the last storm on the 6th. I caught a weather story on TV last week about lake effect snows affecting Buffalo, NY and it made me sad. You only hear those stories when there is a huge omega block over the west coast, causing the jet stream to go well into Canada and directly over the Great Lakes into New York. Deep snow in the Catskills means lean times for the Sierra.

We finally have a glimmer of hope, with a small inside slider coming in this evening. The models bumped this storm up to the 2-5 inch range tonight and tomorrow. A “Special Weather Statement” has been released, as this storm doesn’t even qualify for a Snow Advisory. It should be a nice little refresh though that will soften up the groomers, and cover up all of those rocks we uncovered last weekend in off piste areas.

The inversion quickly returns for the weekend, keeping Truckee cold and Alpine Meadows spring-like. The models are flipping around with the idea of another inside slider for Christmas Eve. The latest model keeps us dry, but brings in a batch of cold air next week to mix out the inversion. That would be the last of the weather for 2013. Yes, that means we would have had only one Winter Storm Warning for the entire year of 2013. That fact is incredible.

The models are getting much more consistent in bringing in a good storm around the 2nd or 3rd of January. Sure this is in the “always a storm at the end of the GFS” category, but it’s the best we have got to pin our hopes on. A few days ago, forecasts were looking completely dry through mid January. So we’ll keep our eye on this storm and hope a sleeper storm arrives sooner.

In the meanwhile, if temperatures get cold as forecasted, the pond hockey season will be gearing up…groomer zoomers in the mornings and hockey in the evenings.