Downhill Slide?

Last Friday, we pointed out that conditions were remarkably good, given the lack of natural snowfall this season. There’s been just two key storms and a lot of snowmaking that have kept things alive and fun this season. We might be on the verge of a downhill slide for skiing and riding conditions this season.

The Snowmaking Status Report

We heard some rumors late last week that the bulk of the snowmaking crew had been laid off. That’s actually a part of normal seasonal operations. In fact, in a normal year, the snowmaking crew would have been put on the sidelines by Mother Nature sometime around New Years. But this is not any normal year.

Last week, the snow making crew was busy getting Charity in shape. Sled-based guns were placed at nearly every hydrant along Charity and Lower Werners. This weekend, we noticed that once Charity and Werners were groomed, the guns also disappeared.

So we went on a tour of the mountain to look and see where they were. It seemed natural to think that the next placement would be along Ladies Slalom to create another groomed run. Some suggested that Weasel would get additional snowmaking to clean up the right side. Many hoped that Alpine Bowl would get some additional work. But what we found was no more sled based guns anywhere on the mountain.

That’s not to say that there won’t be any more snowmaking at all. The large PoleCat fan-based guns are still scattered at some high traffic areas around the mountain. These guns tend to remain in one place and require a bit less manpower for operations. We’re guessing these will be used to make enough snow to make sure dirt patches don’t form in high traffic areas like Sandy’s Corner or the runout leading to Summit Chair. It’s possible that some of that snow could be farmed to some other nearby locations.

What’s unlikely is that we will see any new terrain opened via snowmaking, or expansion and improvement of existing runs. It also seems quite unlikely that we’re going to see a park bigger than the current Tiegel park any time soon. That makes it difficult for Alpine Meadows to compete with Boreal and Northstar, which have created some very significant park features this season. In general, without help from Mother Nature quickly, we can expect a downhill slide in conditions, especially with off piste terrain rapidly deteriorating again.

We would love to be wrong about this…but we also understand that snowmaking is an extremely costly measure to keep resorts open.

The Natural Snow Status Report

Things are looking iffy at best here. The GFS and Euro models had been trying very hard to punch a storm through the RRR this Wednesday. Hopes for snowfall from that system have all but evaporated, literally! We may see temperatures drop by 10 degrees, which will only put a damper on some of the summer activities that people have been enjoying.

In the long term, there was a pretty good agreement that some significant pattern change was in the works for around the 1st of February. Forecasters are no longer in agreement. It’s not to say that it won’t snow around that time period. Previously, the ensemble models showed the RRR pulling back into the Pacific far enough to allow a trough to form that would bring us a series of storms, just like a normal winter. Unfortunately, the models and forecasters have started to diverge:

• BA at OpenSnow.com is still holding hope for the trough to form and has some pretty nice graphics today comparing the positioning of various model runs. In general, most of those models put the ridge close enough to the coast that storms either miss us entirely, or become inside sliders, like the few storms we have seen since January 2013.

• NOAA and a couple of other bloggers see a temporary degradation of the RRR about 10 days out, allowing a couple of waves of moisture through. But then the RRR re-forms about 16 days out.

It’s still a bit early to tell. DS at the California Weather Blog points out that the models have tried to break down the RRR at least 4 other times since the season began. As we know all too well, that has not yet happened. The PNA index, which is essentially based on the amount of ridging in the Pacific, does still indicate a trend toward the negative in our future, just not quite as soon, and not quite as strongly.

As we said above, skiing and riding conditions are likely to take a downhill slide pretty quickly unless we see a change in the weather. As the saying goes, that will be a first world problem. If we don’t get rain and snow soon, and a lot of it, we will have far more problems in the western US states. If you’ve been washing your car frequently in hopes of making it snow, it’s probably time to switch to some other snow charm.