Sunday, March 15, 2009

Looking Cold & Stormy to Finish the Month!

Extremely light snow showers moved in this morning. Looking at the satellite the jetstream looks to have shifted North, this will limit much snowfall today. Should be cloudy with continued light snow showers or flurries, with not much accumulation. Snow levels are currently around 6000 ft. As more favorable Southerly winds develop tonight into Mon. along with a second wave of moisture arriving, the snow should pick-up in intensity & snow levels should raise slightly to between 6500-7000 ft., basically snowing from the base lodge up on Northstar. The cold front will never really push thru, so snow levels will never crash down but should come down to lake level by Monday evening, & the snow ratios will stay low giving us some thick snow. Snow could last into Tuesday morning before ending.

Total liquid on the latest GFS is still .25-.5" over North Lake with about 1" on the crest. The NAM still shows up to 1.5" over North Lake with up to 2" on the crest, the fact that it is consistent would leave the chance that the next storm tomorrow could be slightly wetter than it looks now. Definitely a sharp cut-off from North to South, so a slight shift can greatly affect snowfall totals. If the latest model run holds that is around 3-6 inches above 7000 ft. by Tuesday morning,with up to foot on & just West of the crest.

Starting Tuesday the ridge quickly shifts back North & East & pushes the storm track just to our North. The Pac NW & into far Northern CA will continue to get storms thru next week. We will be stuck in the sun with temps in the 40's on the mtn., 50's in town, possibly a bit warmer.

As the cut-off storm over Hawaii finally gets pulled Northward by storms to it's North, the ridge will be able to retrograde Westward towards the end of the week. This could lead to some storms for next weekend. Today's models continue to show a chance at some decent snow for next weekend into early the following week with cold storms dropping out of the Gulf of Alaska.

Chance of some more decent cold storms could last into the first week of April. Looking like March has the chance to go out as stormy as it came in, just have to get past this upcoming week of warm sunny weather. BA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Should the slopes be pretty good this week?

Anonymous said...

Great site! The obvious bias towards snowy, wintry weather and disdain for sunny skies makes me laugh, it's like the blog is written by Snow Miser. Hey, I'm a skier, I think that way too. Good job.