Snow, Snow, Snow........

Northstar picked up 20 inches in the past 24 hours and the heaviest part of the storm is still to come today. Northstar will have more snow as of today than they did all of last season.

Temps have actually risen about 5 degrees in the early morning hours as some warm air gets drawn up ahead of the cold front. That has decreased snow ratios briefly from about 25:1 to 20:1 on the mountain. As the cold front moves through today we will see the heaviest snow of the storm, and the temps will drop and snow ratios will increase again. Models show that a good amount of the precip is still to fall today with 1.25-1.5 inches of liquid even though we already have a foot in the Villge and almost 2 feet on the mountain. Expect another 1-2 feet in the Village and 2-3 feet on the mountain by Saturday morning.

Models are in pretty good agreement that we start to clear out and dry out Saturday morning with just some lingering snow showers. Temps will be cold with highs maybe not getting out of the single digits on the summit and the teens in the Village. Sunday and Monday we warm up pretty quickly back into the 20's & 30's with brief ridging and a Southerly flow ahead of the next big dump next week.

Another low will drop down the Pacific NW coast next week bringing the cold Northern branch of the jetstream with it. The ridge in the Central Pacific will retrograde North and West allowing the Southern branch of the jetstream to come across the Pacific and merge with the Northern branch over CA by Wednesday. This will be the setup for more heavy snow measured in feet Wednesday through Friday next week.

The La Nina is weakening as we go towards spring and that may be allowing the Southern branch of the jetstream to finally get some energy. The MJO is also forecasted to strengthen over the Western Pacific over the next 2 weeks. I know you may not believe me after it did nothing in January, but now the La Nina is weaker and won't limit the convection as much. Teleconnections are ideal for storms to continue into the Second week of March and maybe beyond. More on that after this storm.....BA