Southern California Daily Snow

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By Mike Korotkin, Meteorologist Posted 10 months ago May 10, 2023

Final Post of the 2022-2023 Season

Summary

Mostly sunny and mild days ahead. The odds of precip are low going forward and it's quite unlikely we'll see anything but more sun and maybe a few rain showers next week. Winter has finally come to a close for us...

Short Term Forecast

Since I've been out in the field since late last week getting  a post out has been tricky. But here we are.. end of the season, final post and boy has it been an epic and historic season. 

Last week we saw a real snow storm come through that dropped an impressive 8 inches over Mt. Baldy!! That is quite something for May, but with those sneaky cut-off lows as you can see it's always a possibility this late into the year. That set them up quite nicely to continue operations...for which I still don't know of a closing date. I'm sure they're playing it by ear and just by how quickly the snow melts. 

At the moment they're only open Friday through Sunday of this weekend, with maybe one more weekend to go. Check out the 5 day forecast for them:

Temps are cool today, on Wednesday in the 40's as a system moves through brining clouds from overnight Tuesday and a cool down but we get back into the 50's by Friday and almost 60 over the weekend. 

The end of snow storms is likely in sight for us as we wrap up this amazing season. Full on Spring into early Summer conditions will dominate. 

Extended Forecast

The Spring into Summer conditions will continue all of next week. 

Check out the latest GFS Ensemble Mean forecast for the all of next week. It shows a large dome of high pressure over Western Canada which will keep us mostly dry and on the milder side. 

There is a chance we could see some moisture sneak in, but with the warm temps it will only fall as scattered and isolated rain showers and thunderstorms the middle of next week. Naturally if something changes I will let you know. But at this time I really do for-see that the Winter season is over for us and the final accumulating snow was last week. 

Seasonal Recap

As promised in the last post I would do a quick seasonal recap of what we had this winter. It was a long, very snowy, and cold winter season. November and December were slower months with accumulations that added up to only a couple feet total. But in January the storm track took aim at California and the storms didn't stop for what felt like 3 straight months. We had quite a set of storms come through in both the end of January, end of February and end of March. 

There was one February storm in particular that dropped insane amounts of snow, and specifically in a 24 hour period. Many areas reported 4 - 6 FT!! Mt. Baldy may have set a 24 hour snowfall record... but at this time it's not known, since I never could get an official measurement. Regardless everyone was absolutely swimming in snowfall, with many roof collapses and full on road closures. It was truly a harrowing time everyone in the mtns. during that time. 

The storms continues well into March with another powerful multi-foot storm the final week of March. So ended the final train of storms and April quieted down significantly with only a few inches reported by most resorts. 

As everyone closed the end of April, Mt. Baldy continued to spin the lifts and received 8 inches in May. It's not clear to me whether it's their longest season but I'm sure it will be in the top 2 or 3, as they're planning to continue yet another weekend. 

As for seasonal totals Mountain High racked up 161 inches down at the base and 177 up top. That's the best season in almost 20 years. The last season to beat it was 2004 - 2005 with over 278 inches.

Big Bear Mtn. Resort tallied up 243 inches this season! That's officially their best season since their records go back to the 99-2000 season! So the best season in over 23 years of record keeping! Quite impressive indeed.

Snow Valley was bought up by Big Bear Mtn. Resort in the middle of the season, so now Bear Mtn., Snow Summit, and Snow Valley will all be under the same banner. They reported a whopping 277 inches for the season, which is the highest official season total for any SoCal mtn. this season. 

Unfortunately Mt. Baldy did not keep seasonal snowfall records that I'm aware of. I'm hopeful we can correct that going forward but there's a really good chance they beat Snow Valley with likely over 300 inches for the season! 

It truly was a historic season and I can't wait to forecast again for you all next season starting in November. But until then, enjoy your final turns at Mt. Baldy and get ready for all the summer activities to commence. Have fun! 

Till the next one... Mike out. 

About Our Forecaster

Mike Korotkin

Meteorologist

Mike graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s in Atmospheric Science and received his Masters in Atmospheric Science at the University of Nevada Reno. He grew up in Southern California by the beach, but quickly realized he loved the mountains, so his first memories were of the SoCal mountains where he saw snow for the first time. He started skiing in his 20’s and is now an avid skier and backpacker at locations up and down the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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