I posted earlier this morning with some totals and some pictures of the ski resorts if you missed it.  You can always click the link at the bottom of the post to go back to the previous post.  Finally this afternoon we have the snowfall reports for most ski resorts.

I drove up to the office this morning on Donner Summit.  There was an inch or two in Truckee melting, but up on Soda Springs at 7000 feet, the snow was knee deep and it was still snowing lightly when I left mid-day.  Reports from around the lake are similar with couple of inches that are melting on the North side, and the up to 6 inches that fell on the South side and then got rained on.

For the ski resorts the heaviest snow hit West of the crest NW of the lake.  Boreal and Sugar Bowl both reported 2 feet of snow up top and I believe it with the 18 inches we had in between at the office.  Below is the report from the rest of the ski resorts that reported.  A nice base builder to start the season!

Here is my keep me honest report for the storm.  It takes the forecast from 24 hours before the storm arrived and the final reported totals.

Here is a beautiful picture that came in today from Diamond Peak.  It is nice to see a snowy basin.

The air will be cold enough tonight to get the snow guns cranking again to build on what we have.  We have a break in the action through tomorrow.

Storm #2

Tomorrow night a fast moving cold storm will blast through.  Snow levels will be well below lake level with this one.  With the fast moving nature it limits the snowfall.  Here is the updated snowfall forecast for tomorrow night.

You can see not much total precip on the GFS.

This storm should clear out by Wednesday morning.  That gives us another break into Thanksgiving Day.  If you are traveling the later you drive on Wednesday the better.  The air will be cold behind this storm with more snowmaking at night and daytime highs only in the 30's.

Storm #3

The next storm moves in later Friday into Friday night.  This storm looks similar to the Tuesday night storm, but slightly wetter.  With both storms the forecast models are pretty similar in total precip.  It looks like we could get another 5-10 inches Friday night on the mountains, but we will continue to update as we get closer.

Here is the GFS total precip through Friday night.

Possible Storm 4?

It looks like we will have another break Saturday into Sunday will cold air behind the storm.  Sunday night another cold storm could dive in.  At this point the pattern is starting to change and the ridge is building off the coast.  The GFS  brings in one more decent storm, but the trend on the European model is to push the storm to the North with only a dusting of snow.

Taking the average of the models here is the total snowfall possible by this time next week.

Here is the ensemble plumes through the weekend for snowfall on Donner Summit.

Going into the week of the 28th we have a pattern setting up that should bring more cold, and could bring more snow.

Here is a look at what the GFS ensembles were forecasting a few days ago.

We discussed this possible pattern last week.  What I mentioned in the last post is that the trough over the West was trending further East and the ridge North of Hawaii further East as well, but the block is still up near the Hudson Bay.  Here is the new GFS ensemble forecast for the same day. Tuesday the 29th.

What that is doing on the operational models is sending the storms over the ridge in the Gulf of Alaska and down the West Coast into the trough.  That also pushes a lot of cold air into the West.  If you compare the two we are missing the trough connecting into the Gulf of Alaska and instead have a ridge there now.  That pattern a few days ago is what was causing the GFS to bring in multiple strong storms off the ocean starting next weekend with tons of snow.

The European ensembles are showing the Western trough even a bit more shifted East, just to our East.  With the models shifting the pattern slightly East we will have to see where the trough sets up week 2 for what kind of storms we see.  The cold air over the West should be easier to bet on.

On the GFS pattern the trough digs just West of the coast.  In that scenario the cold storms dropping down from the North can stay just off the coast picking up moisture off the ocean and bring us cold storms with good snowfall.  The operational GFS runs hint at that.  With the European pattern the trough is just to our East so the storms come down over land so they have less moisture to work with, and they brush us as they slide down to our East.  

So we will continue to watch the pattern.  If we do get some storm and it is as cold as a pattern like this can produce, we could see some really low snow levels.  I want to show the GFS total snowfall for the next 2 weeks not to look at snowfall amounts, but to show that it has snow in the coastal mountain ranges down to LA.  It has snow levels down to around 2,000 feet with some of the storms.

The ensemble runs are suggesting the trough could stay in the West into December with continued colder air and the possibility of storms.  Anything beats having a ridge!

Let's hope we get some snow too if we get a cold pattern the week of the 28th.   For now we have more snow coming this week and more ski resorts announcing openings coming up this week.

Stay tuned...BA

Don't forget that we are now forecasting for the Mammoth area.  So be sure to start checking out Howard's discussion on that page as well! https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/mammoth