South America Daily Snow
By Luke Stone, Forecaster Posted 11 months ago August 5, 2024
Big Snow Last Week, More On the Way
Summary
A major storm delivered big totals across the Andes last week providing some of the best conditions of the season. Another storm is just getting going, bringing additional accumulations, especially in the central zone. Things quiet down on Wednesday through the end of the work week but a storm to the south will threaten to bring more activity to the region.
Short Term Forecast
The last storm really delivered in the Andes with several powder days to close out the week. Below are some of the totals I could find on social media and resort websites. Some of these are definitely much lower than the actual totals but reporting is limited.
- Nevados de Chillan: 1.45 m
- Las Lenas: .7 - 1.2 m
- Corralco: 97 cm
- Portillo: 64 cm
- Valle Nevado: 30 cm
- Cerro Catedral: 13 - 30 cm
- Antillanca: 10 - 15 cm
- Chapelco: 7 - 15 cm
Valle Nevado, Corraclo, Las Lenas, and Nevados de Chillan had some solid powder days. Good powder conditions were likely present at many other resorts as well. We had a quick break on Sunday but the next system arrived last (Sunday) night. This storm is coming onshore this (Monday) morning and will bring more snow through Tuesday. The heaviest snow will fall during the day on Monday and Monday night, and temperatures will be falling throughout this period. Tuesday looks like another good powder day in the northern zone and the northern half of the central zone.
The latest snow forecast from the European model for the entire storm is below.
Totals should wind up in the 25 - 50 cm range by the end of the day on Tuesday, at resorts like Valle Nevado, Las Lenas, Antuco, Araucarias, and Corralco. Totals will drop off further north in the northern zone and further south in the central zone, with 10 - 25 cm expected. Snow showers will linger through the day on Tuesday but it won't be too heavy.
A ridge starts to build in on Tuesday night and will stick around through Friday. On Friday night, a storm will cross the southern tip of the continent, and right now looks too far south for any impacts at the resorts.
In the GIF of the upper-level pattern below, you can see our current storm moving out of the region at the start of the clip. Then, the ridge moves in and you can see the storm moving south of the ridge later in the week. Finally, at the end of the GIF, you can see another ridge building into the region that is expected to bring a period of warm and dry weather through the following week.
Extended Forecast
The long-range models show a possible return to active weather around the middle of the month. The ensembles are in pretty good agreement with a pattern change at this time.
Next update on Wednesday.
Thanks for reading the South America Daily Snow!
Luke Stone (@imlukesnow)
Forecaster, OpenSnow
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