January Snow in March..........

Northstar picked up 8 inches of champagne style powder overnight. Temps last night were in the teens as the snow fell, so high snow ratios of 20-30:1 increased totals.  Total for the last 2 nights is 10 inches and 19 inches this week. 

Temps will only be in the 20's today and then will rebound back into the 40's tomorrow with a ridge building in. Next storm approaches on Friday with snow breaking out by Friday night. This storm is much stronger than the last two, but only moderate in strength. Looking for 6-9 inches in the village with 9-12 inches above 7000 ft.

After a cold day Saturday a ridge builds in Sunday with temps warming into the 50's by Monday and Tuesday. This will be the warmest weather we have seen in a long time. It could break 60 in Truckee. It looks as if the ridge will be strong enough to keep the next storm for next Wednesday just to our North. The storm will drop temps a bit before another warm-up for the end of next week.

El Nino continued it's fade last week and soon will be in the weak category. The MJO is dead for the rest of the season it appears. This means that the end of this month may be the last shot at a storm train. Models still back and forth on the idea of the ridge pinching off to our North allowing the jetstream to come under it into CA starting around the 20th of the month. Do your dances and prayers for this to develop. There won't be much blocking over the East so the stage should be set for this to develop.

The sun has begun another stretch of spotless days. After 2 of the least spotless years in a century the past 2 years, it appeared as if the sun may be waking out of it's minimum and finally starting it's next cycle the last 2 months. A quiet sun not only has an affect on the earth's temps, but I have been reading some research that suggests it could be a cause of an increase in earthquakes. Interesting to watch.....BA