Snow Showers Total

The mtn. reported 3 inches of snow in the last 24 hours bringing our season total to 667 inches! That's just one inch shy of our record season of 2010 - 2011. And at this point it's about as much of a guarantee that I can give you that we are going to beat that season before the month of March ends! What will the rest of this epic season bring?! 

Friday - Monday 

The weather over the next several days will stay relatively calm. Temps will be in the 20's at the 9K FT level and high teens up on the summit. Lows will be quite cold as well so we're basically still in full winter mode. 

Winds should stay mostly tame throughout this period as well gusts only up to 25 MPH out of the Northwest. 

As I mentioned yesterday the weak system for the weekend has trended weaker and our chances of seeing accumulating snowfall are very low. But the chances are still there that we could see a dusting to an inch on Saturday, and especially Saturday night. So we might tie our record on Sunday if we see that inch. 

Monday the winds starts to pick up out of the Southwest as a more powerful system approaches California. 

Tuesday - Wednesday Storm 

I've hinted as this bigger storm for several days now. It's finally within the 5 day window so we can start getting into more details. The first and most important detail is that the models aren't in full agreement on how much precip we'll see. 

But what I can say is that it will snow and there's a good chance we'll see between 1 - 2FT at Main Lodge. Temps will be cool again with this colder storm. Highs in the 20's on Tuesday with teens on Wednesday. 

Winds will be gusty out of the Southwest on Tuesday with gusts up to 70 MPH over the summit and closer to 40 MPH by Wednesday. Tuesday could be a pretty rough day to be out on the mtn. as the brunt of the storm is coming through that day. I'm expecting high winds, low visibility and pretty heavy snowfall rates. 

This storm has the possibility to tap into a pretty deep stream of moisture from the subtropics, which would really boost up the expected snowfall amounts. Could this be winter's last hurrah? That I can't say, but I will say it's going to be the last major storm of March... although there's only 2 days of March left after that! Hah! 

My initial snowfall forecast through Wednesday, which is still outside of the 5 day window is 15 - 20 inches at Main Lodge and upwards of 2 FT up on the summit. I'll be fine tuning this forecast over the next 5 days so be sure to stay tuned to the latest trends. 

Some models keep snow showers going into Thursday morning as we've seen over the past couple days. We've had moist flow over the mtns, which wrings out the moisture. That could bring several more inches of accumulation. 

Overall though the models are favoring a drier period setting up going into the first weekend of April next week. It doesn't look to warm up significantly so cool temps will still keep the snowpack fresh. I'm sure everyone could use a break and it looks like we might be getting one at least for a little while. The rest of April can always bring more surprises for us... 

Till the next one... Mike out.