Thursday 

It's storm day! Both the GFS and Euro are showing similar amounts of precip for our Thursday storm, so I won't be going into detail on the snowfall numbers but I really would say that 2 FT up top is a good bet! It's going to be windy and stormy all day so if you're skiing you'll be on the lower mtn, since all the upper mtn. lifts will be closed for the wind. 

Friday Powder! 

It will be beautiful on Friday with blue bird skies and much less wind with gusts only up to 30 MPH on the summit. Temps will be cool in the high 20's and low 30's across the mtn. 

Saturday - Monday Storm 

The storm for Saturday into early Monday morning is on! Models are finally starting to converge on the wetter solution. The GFS still has more precip than the Euro, but the Euro is trending wetter. The Ensemble Means of both models are especially close to each with a total of 4.5 to 4.8 inches of liquid through Monday morning. That's including the Thursday storm. 

Saturday we'll likely see snow earlier in the day, with rates increasing overnight into Sunday morning. Winds will get strong again by Saturday morning into Sunday with gusts in the 70 - 80 MPH range out of the Southwest over the summit. 

Temps will be a little warmer than the Thursday storm so snow ratios will be a little lower. So instead of 18:1 we might see more like 14 - 16:1 ratios over the top. The biggest differences with this storm will be the duration of the event. It's likely to last all of Saturday into Sunday and then even into early Monday morning, so a solid 48 hours if not longer. While the precip won't fall quite as hard and fast as the Thursday storm it will fall for much longer. Slower piling up of snow means more time to enjoy storm skiing! Personally, that's one of my favorite things... 

The WPC model shows 7 inches of liquid by Monday afternoon combined with the Thursday system. Backing that out it's showing close to 4 additional inches of liquid, which is a lot. I'm not fully buying into that scenario. 7 inches of liquid even at 10:1 would be 70 inches of snow! I'd much rather under forecast this storm by a few inches and hope it over delivers. 

Given that, my forecast is going up today because more models are showing more precip. I honestly do believe I'm still being conservative with these numbers and I still have a couple days to fine tune them. At Main Lodge I'm thinking we could see see 16 - 20 inches of snow at Main Lodge with another 24 - 30 inches over the summit. If we see the high end of this storm and the Thursday storm that would be 57 inches of snow over the summit, which is certainly lower than the 70 inches than the WPC is showing at this time. 

I'm very confident at this time that we should see 2 FT plus totals from both systems on the summit, given the wind doesn't blow it around too much for an accurate measurement! 

 

Tuesday - Wednesday 

We dry out Monday December 5th and that continues into Wednesday most likely. We stay cold through that time period though with highs in the 20's at the base! It's likely to be the coldest snap of the season so far.

The models are suggesting another trough to be in our region by Wednesday night into Thursday/Friday December 8th/9th. The question is whether or not it will be in the right position to deliver a real storm or a brush by system that slides into the Great Basin... Time will tell on that one. Before then we have lots of snow to get through! 

Till the next one... Mike out.