Western Weather 2010-14

[longshanks]

This doesn't look good at all...Accuweather's Ken Clark on the high pressure ridge now strengthening over the West...

Mega Winter Ridge Means Mega Winter Dryness Jan 20, 2011; 1:56 PM ET
The screaming message in the weather pattern through the end of the month is for dry weather the rest of the month in the Southwest and even drier than normal weather in the Great Basin and Northwest. A mega ridge in the eastern Pacific will stand large and strong.

I do not see any threat of rain and snow in the Southwest through next week. The sometime fickle models are in agreement on this. This will mean that January will end up far below normal precipitation wise. Along with the dryness will also come warmer than normal weather that is likely to continue as well.

Even in the Northwest and Great Basin it will be pretty dry the rest of the month. The only real important precipitation will be tomorrow into tomorrow night in the Northwest and tomorrow night into Saturday in the Great Basin and eastern Rockies. After that it looks like most of the time will be free of precipitation. This is not bad news for the Northwest where recent rain and snow melt has caused flooding problems.

and more of the same $hite news from Alex Sosnowski...

A building ridge of high pressure will eventually push Pacific storms so far north that they will miss not only California, but the Northwest U.S. entirely next week and beyond...

Colder air may try to slosh in from the north and east during February, simultaneously with a return of the storms. However, that is 10 to 14 days off.


Has anyone seen The King's Speech with Geoffrey Rush & Colin Firth? I think Firth's character (King George VI) sums up this forecast quite well with his angry but hilarious rant...fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, bastard, fuck... I couldn't agree more

 

[berkshireskier]

Come East to ski. We're having an unbelievable winter in New England (at least, central NE). Snowed another 5 to 7 inches last night and prediction is for the possibility of a major blizzard in the middle of next week. We're talking almost Utah quantities of snow. Truly looks like the tundra out there. I think it has been at least 15 years since we have had this much snow and prediction is for continued cold weather well into February.

 

[Marc_C]

This doesn't look good at all...

Relax. This has happened at some point every January ever since I moved here 10 years ago. Things will change.

 

[longshanks]

This doesn't look good at all...

Relax. This has happened at some point every January ever since I moved here 10 years ago. Things will change.

Easy for you to say living as you do in the land of Mormons wheras I live in the land of Flat - my yearly trip to W. Canada which this year is 12 days beginning next week, is planned well in advance. Oh well, since 1998 success vs. failure in timing has been about 50/50. The trip will still be great...just without the POW that was anticipated. Maybe those Accuweather wags are wrong, you're right...things will change - just when is the question. One thing about a non-storm cycle trip, the driving is better and if the sun shines you get a tan drinking on the patio

 

[longshanks]

Come East to ski. We're having an unbelievable winter in New England (at least, central NE). Snowed another 5 to 7 inches last night and prediction is for the possibility of a major blizzard in the middle of next week. We're talking almost Utah quantities of snow. Truly looks like the tundra out there. I think it has been at least 15 years since we have had this much snow and prediction is for continued cold weather well into February.

Don't care...I prefer to spend my $$ in Canada and for me that means West as I know more people there and the Mountains are better. As for Quebec, I can take it or leave it...usually real cold, questionable snowfall, Icy, too many Brits. No real interest in New England either, long drive, expensive, crowded (too many Americans). Sorry, but I'm a Homer...but thanks for the pitch eh!

 

[Tony Crocker]

If I were in longshanks' circumstances (Ontario I think) I would be making similar decisions where to ski.

 

[SkiSwami]

I'm throwing it down with longshanks on this one. Trying to decide if I should postpone my scheduled trip to Whitewater on 2/1. We have a flight to Spokane and I can't seem to find any convincing evidence the Whitewater will be worth skiing 10-15 days from now.

I don't much chance of any decent snow in the next 2 weeks at this point and we're considering sucking up the extra $200 flight change fee and shooting for beginning of March instead. If we can't pull off a change (due to friends work, etc) we are thinking of a long road trip to where there is decent packed powder (Lake Louise or KH) and/or plenty of groomers not so much affected by the rain crust from last week. Maybe Whitefish.

I just read this from Accuweather and it looks like late Feb-March should be a much safer bet for good conditions if we intend to ski Whitewater which was our goal this year:

"The overall pattern so far this month has not been one that I personally envisioned back in October and November. Large-scale, persistent blocking high pressure areas over northeastern and far northern Canada have fought off what we typically experience across North America with a moderate to strong La Nina.
Mid- and long-range computer models now continue to show that the blocking in the far north will more or less remain absent through the first half of February, but with a Pacific ridge extending into northwestern Canada, it allows for cold air to plunge into eastern North America. By the third week of February, the ECMWF model predicts that the cold will retreat back into northwestern Canada and Alaska, but that an active storm track will cut across the Pacific Northwest and also near the Great Lakes, which is what I had envisioned, only much earlier.
Ahh, the challenges of extended long-range weather forecasting!
Here is the new updated ECMWF long-range weather forecast that goes out to the week of Feb 14-20th."

The ECMWF hints that we may see a return to the Southeast U.S. ridge during the Feb 14-20th week. The Southeast ridge has been MIA most of this winter.

So, there you have it. Any other thoughts? Anybody have a snow forecast at this point? I'd love to see it, because I'm ready to go (West that is)!!

 

[sheahunter]

We are headed to Tahoe on February 18th, hoping for the pattern to change by then.

 

[rfarren]

We are headed to Tahoe on February 18th, hoping for the pattern to change by then.

Or you'll have nice corn... I wouldn't worry about it too much, Presidents weekend is a long time away.

 

[Marc_C]

Anybody have a snow forecast at this point?

For 10-15 days from now? Man if I could do that, I'd have extra millions to just give away.

 

[SkiSwami]

For 10-15 days from now? Man if I could do that, I'd have extra millions to just give away.

A glimmer of hope maybe? I know that was asking a lot. Just looking for some reason to justify saving $$ on flight change fees. Decision time in a day or two, but looks like we're going to probably put our chips on the 2nd week of March instead and gear up for a possible long road trip if necessary. We shall not allow La Nina to mock our plans us any further.

 

[rfarren]

It's amazing to me how many East Coasters are willing to change their flights so as only to ski powder. To me the most important component of any ski trip is the terrain. Don't get me wrong, powder is great, but I would be just as happy with sun, soft chalky snow, or wonderful, beautiful, corn. Coincidentally, the EC is skiing about as well if not better than certain parts out west. According to Joe Bastardi the EC looks like it will be cold for a pretty extended time period, so the snow could be prime. However, according to Joe Bastardi Utah's terrain will not be moving to the EC this winter.

 

[SkiSwami]

It's amazing to me how many East Coasters are willing to change their flights so as only to ski powder. To me the most important component of any ski trip is the terrain. Don't get me wrong, powder is great, but I would be just as happy with sun, soft chalky snow, or wonderful, beautiful, corn.

I agree. But tell me how great the terrain is when you're skiing trees at Red Mountain or Whitewater with dust on frozen raincrust. =; If you can promse me sun and corn snow, I'll be there. I don't need powder, but I don't want to spend a week skiing groomers at those places either. I don't know that it's actually bad there, but it could be.

If it isn't too much hassle to change dates, then why not? I don't expect powder, if I did I would never plan a trip more than 3 days in advance, but if I can give myself a chance to ski the same great terrain with potentially better conditions, I'm happy to inconvenience myself with that.

Not to mention I just bought some rockered Fat-ypus I-rocks and I'm planning on showing them around the place. \/

 

[rfarren]

I agree. But tell me how great the terrain is when you're skiing trees at Red Mountain or Whitewater with dust on frozen raincrust. =; If you can promse me sun and corn snow, I'll be there. I don't need powder, but I don't want to spend a week skiing groomers at those places either. I don't know that it's actually bad there, but it could be.

If it isn't too much hassle to change dates, then why not? I don't expect powder, if I did I would never plan a trip more than 3 days in advance, but if I can give myself a chance to ski the same great terrain with potentially better conditions, I'm happy to inconvenience myself with that.

Not to mention I just bought some rockered Fat-ypus I-rocks and I'm planning on showing them around the place. \/

Fair enough, but when you're talking 10-15 days out don't you think it's a bit early to be switching things around. The weather is highly suspect until about 5 days out, and even then it's hard to say what's going to happen. I spend a lot of time looking at the GFS and ECWMF as well, and from what I can tell they don't really tell the whole story until about 4 or 5 days out. Now if they agree 8 or 9 days out by showing absolutely zero precip that's one thing, but I don't think that is the case. Furthermore, you're going to BC which stands as good a chance of any place out west to get snow according to the models.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'm not sure why you're worried about current conditions at Whitewater: http://www.skiwhitewater.com/whitewater ... ulator.php
Red Mt. also has a daily snowfall graph: http://www.redresort.com/mountain/report/

Whistler has been mostly resurfaced now: http://whistlerblackcombsnowreport.com/report/snow
Fernie also: http://www.redtree.com/far

It is not realistic to expect powder on advance booked trips. viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6822
If your drop dead date to change air tickets is 2 weeks out, you're chasing an illusion with regard to weather reports. MarcC is right: you need to be within 5 days or so for a weather prediction to have enough credibility to dictate your plans.

 

[Admin]

you need to be within 5 days or so for a weather prediction to have enough credibility to dictate your plans.

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/News/2 ... d-10-Days/

 

[SkiSwami]

Rob, Tony, Admin-guy:

Thank you. This is why I came here. I stand humbly corrected. It looks like things at some places (Fernie) are recovering better than what I may have been foolish enough to interpret from reading some of the intentional misinformation from "the maggots" and/or elsewhere.

We are scheduled to depart in 8 days, so it's not absurdly far-off, but I get the point and can't say I disagree. Joel Gratz makes his point very clearly. We'll try to wait until the end of this week to see if we think we should change plans. Like I said, I don't have to have powder, but I'd sure like to get some for a change. It's always a compromise when you have a group of guys who you like to ski with and aren't rolling in enough cash for more than an occasional day of cheap cat-skiing. With a group of friends with jobs it's also difficult to be on the 3 day storm plan.

I've made trips out west for the past 30 years and do it mostly for the great terrain, sometimes for the weather and not necessarily the powder. I know you can never plan for a lift-accessed powder trip in advance , but we usually seem to just miss it and it makes us irrational sometimes. In all our years though this was the first time we really considered a change in plans - only because the Pineapple seemed so horrific last week from all these miles away.

So, thanks for straightening us out for the time being. I'll let you know how it goes later in the week.

 

[longshanks]

Well SkiSwami, I hear ya loud and clear. If I was going solo on this trip, I likely would have considered changing plans as well. But I'm meeting friends from BC & Saskatchewan on the front-end and some other dudes from CA & WA on the back-end, so it is tough to re-shuffle the deck this late in the game. Like many other adicts on this forum, I also get wrapped up in watching forecasts and long range models and listen far too much to the wags at Accuweather.

I am flying to Calgary tomorrow morning and heading to Castle Mtn AB for Wednesday, Thursday and maybe Friday before heading for Rossland. As for on-the-ground reporting for Red and WW, my Bud from Rossland (who is picking me up in Calgary) said that Red was frozen as hard as Hobo$hit before some new snow fell at the end of last week (wed-fri). However, he'd heard that Whitewater was still quite good as they did not get the rain that Red did on the previous weekend. It is snowing there today although only light accumulations are expected. There are more small amounts forecast between now and Saturday [-o< .
Oddly, in all the years that I've been tripping to the BC interior, I have never been to WW. A visit is definately on this years's agenda though as I want to finally check it out. I'm just hoping that the mega-ridge doesn't set up quite the way thats been predicted and that the Kootenays get a few of those unique micro-climate dumps that they're famous for...if not there is always drinkin', drugin', and whorin' to keep me busy :-$

 

[SkiSwami]

...if not there is always drinkin', drugin', and whorin' to keep me busy :-$

:lol:
Well, you see how screwed I would be then. My worst fears of all are of the frozen hobo $hit kind, and then to top it off, I haven't done drugs in 30 years (they test me 8-[ ), my wife has impenetrable whore-radar, and I'm too old to stay awake long enough to get myself close enought to drunk to enjoy the drinkin'. So, if I don't get something else that's good (conditions or weather) - I'm cryin' like a fat little cub-scout on a canoe trip.

I haven't been able to find out any reliable info on Whitewater conditions, but that's good to hear they apparently missed most of the slop. Red hasn't gotten much snow since it froze over, so I hope that changes before you get there. I wouldn't want to take a dust on crust death slide on my belly down the the trail that bears it's name. If you get a chance to ski WW, send me a p/m and let me know how it was. We're probably headed there on 2/2 and beyond at this point. We may venture off for 2 or 3 days well beyond WW if there is really good snow somewhere else.

That's one hell of a great friend you have there driving all the way to Calgary to pick you up. That should bring him some kind of reward for the week anyhow. Have a great trip!

 

[Marc_C]

That's one hell of a great friend you have there driving all the way to Calgary to pick you up. That should bring him some kind of reward for the week anyhow.

Apparently alcohol, drugs, and hookers would be appropriate.