No matter what the forecasters and the wanna-be-forecasters say this season, there is only one forecast you can trust. It’s the one that says it’s going to be another sunny and warm spring-like day again.
We bought into the idea that the high temperature would be 40° with an east wind keeping things chilly. That was pretty far off today. Temperatures ranged as high as the upper 40’s with a west wind in the afternoon. The upshot is that it was another great ski day at Alpine Meadows.
Over the last week, a lot more snow has melted, in particular on the south facing slopes. Many off piste runs are getting to be somewhat hazardous with thin coverage and many obstacles. On piste slopes are also starting to wear thin. It’s not for lack of effort. Mountain ops people were again blowing snow this morning, and removing as many obstacles as they could. The fact that skiing is as good as it is when we have had so little natural snow is amazing. If only mother nature would cooperate with mountain ops.
It did snow in Truckee for a few minutes this evening, so odds are reasonable that some sort of colder weather weather may be present tomorrow which might lead to firmer conditions. As of this evening, NOAA is still showing a high of 26° at mid-mountain tomorrow. Any chance for significant amounts of snow has been moved to Mono County, as we suggested in yesterday’s post. Fortunately, the Rhalve’s Banzai event managed to complete both the qualifiers and finals round today, preventing the need to run the finals in icy conditions tomorrow. The first comment below corrects this. The Final 16 still have to run tomorrow.
For the longer term, we’re still going with “Maybe March”, the ECWMF and the GFS are showing the same trend. The RRR looks like it wants to stay a bit closer in to the Pacific coast. That means that storms will not be able to drop straight out of the Gulf Of Alaska. Instead they will be forced over the ridge and become inside sliders, which tend to be colder and drier. A series of these storms seem to be in the extended somewhere around the 1st. Our advice is to not wait for a March Miracle…come out and get it while you can.
For fans of carnage, red bull, and East winds, there is a slight correction to be made.
While the earlier call went out early to hold Summit chair open until 4:30 to finish the event, that changed around 3:30. Light was getting quite flat as clouds moved in, and they halted competition at the round of 16 I believe, and Summit shut down at 4.
More happenings tomorrow, but recognize that a strong East wind could also shut down Summit chair. I hope the competitors don’t mind hiking.
A cold wind is blowing here, and temps are plummeting. Winter is back, for a couple days, except for the snow part.
Thanks for the correction AlpineDreamer…we left before that happened.