Exorcising the Rex Hex.

We have gotten really lucky the past couple nights as some storms coming down to our East thru the Rockies have kept the wind coming from the NE rather than the NW. This has allowed us to be a little colder than was expected and we have had marginal snowmaking temps. There have been some big inversions, but 15 degrees in the valley and then the upper 20’s to just above freezing as you go up the mountain. We should get one more night tonight similar to the past two. Then it looks like the temps will struggle to get below freezing above 7000 feet for Friday and Saturday night as the ridge moves in off of the ocean and the winds switch.

There is a lot of buzz this morning in the weather world about the possible pattern change. This is most likely because the weather models have started to show the changes I talked about on Monday. The Rex Block will gradually start to make its westward shift starting next week. The initial impacts will be felt starting Sunday night as we begin to lose the inversions. The temps won’t be all that cold, 28-32 degrees at night, but it will be the same temp from the valleys up. As we go thru the week the temps should gradually start to cool.

If we keep praying and the Rex keeps shifting West, true Arctic air may finally be able to come in for the week of the 14th. The Rex Block can actually be our friend if it sets up out at about 150 longitude, and the northern branch of the Jet gets fueled and goes up and over into CA. Ed Berry talked about the westward retrogression of the ridge in Monday’s post and now I can see it happening on the models. Still won’t get excited about storms but they are on the models for the week going into Christmas. I’ll get into more details if the models can be consistent thru Monday. BA