Cold and Possible Snow Midweek?

It is a beautiful weekend on the mountain with sun and nice temps.  We have some cold air at night for continued snowmaking, but we could have a reinforcing shot with possible light snow later this week.

The ridge is building in strong over the West and will dominate our Weather over the next several days.  There are a few good signs in the weather though for the upcoming week, but big snow is not quite on the horizon yet.

As we go through next week the ridge of high pressure sitting over the Rockies will begin to shift West towards the West Coast as a trough and storm dive into the East.  By Wednesday the ridge should be offshore in the Pacific which will still block storms from coming in off the ocean, but it will open the path for cold and light snow to come down from Canada.

On Thursday it looks like a cold airmass will push down into the West from Canada and bring light snowfall down through the Rockies to our East.  Several of the weather models show the possibility of a piece of energy breaking off and forming a low pressure near Tahoe.  That low could bring light snowfall Thursday and Friday before pushing East next weekend.

The following week looks similar with the possibity of another strong cold air mass pushing down through the West.  We need the ridge to move further off the coast so that these cold fronts can come further West and tap moisture from off the ocean.  It is possible but it's harder to do when we have a positive PNA (Pacific North American) teleconnection pattern.

We are hoping that the PNA goes back negative soon which it should since a La Nina favors a negative PNA.  Also as we get closer to Winter the jetstream will continue to get stronger and push further down the coast.  The AO (Arctic Oscillation) is also trending negative. That would help to displace the cold in the Arctic Southward which in turn can push the jetstream further South down the coast.

We also need to watch the MJO (Madden Julian Oscillation) as it continues to strengthen in the Indian Ocean.  We want it to push through the Western Pacific while strong so that it can pull the ridge back from the coast or send the jetstream underneath the ridge into CA. You can monitor all these teleconnections here.

Until then keep tuning in and keep thinking and praying for snow. I believe that once it returns it will return in a big way with the stronger than normal La Nina jetstream this Winter. BA