5 to 10 feet predicted for Tahoe

tseeb

tseeb

Well-known member
Tahoe Daily Tribune say "Storm this week could be one for the record books". See http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/articl ... /423256795

weather.com has a special weather statement http://www.weather.com/weather/newscent ... tId=129274 that says:
"CONFIDENCE IS HIGH WITH RESPECT TO SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL IN THE SIERRA. LATEST PROJECTIONS SUGGEST STORM TOTALS BETWEEN 5 AND 10 FEET OF SNOW ARE POSSIBLE ALONG THE SIERRA CREST... WITH MULTIPLE FEET DOWN TO LAKE TAHOE AND HIGHER ELEVATIONS ALONG THE EASTERN SIERRA. IN ADDITION...WINDS ARE FORECAST TO BE UNUSUALLY STRONG WITH A POTENTIAL FOR BLIZZARD"

My plan is to spend New Year's Eve and Day with my wife who has to return to work on Wed. I will leave San Jose very early Wed. for Kirkwood where I have three tickets I need to use. I will be taking two teenage boarders. My buddy and his son and another friend plan to do a day trip and meet us. We will be at Heavenly Thurs. and Fri. Unless I get snowed in, I will miss the most of powder weekend as I need to be back for Sharks game Sat. night as I have 4th row seats.
 
"CONFIDENCE IS HIGH WITH RESPECT TO SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL IN THE SIERRA. AT LAKE LEVEL...INCLUDING SOUTH LAKE TAHOE AND TRUCKEE...STORM TOTALS OF 1 TO 3 FEET ARE POSSIBLE DURING THE FOUR DAY PERIOD. STORM TOTALS ABOVE 7000 FEET ALONG THE SIERRA CREST COULD BE ABOVE 5 FEET WITH AS MUCH AS 8 FEET OF SNOW POSSIBLE." See http://www.weather.com/weather/newscent ... tId=143999

The 10 day forecast has snow every day from 1/3 to 1/10 except for next Tues 1/8.
See http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreati ... arch_10day

While I get to a few Sharks games, this will be my first time in the 4th row and also my son's first game this season as it is hard to find three tickets. I found somebody who won five $91 (makes Vail look like a bargain) Club Seats. They couldn't use them and were leaving town so I got them cheap. Now I'm trying to sell two of them which would leave my cost for three at $50.

I do not like to miss the big dump this weekend and could get in some runs Sat. morning, but Heavenly and Kirkwood tend to close most of their lifts in storms due to wind. Sun, Mon and Tues may be the better powder days, but my skiing pass (from my wife) requires me to be home for hockey game and traveling Sat. PM may not be possible.

See more from alert:
"IN ADDITION...WINDS ARE FORECAST TO BE UNUSUALLY STRONG FRIDAY AND FRIDAY NIGHT. BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE LIKELY AT MANY OF THE PASSES AROUND LAKE TAHOE FRIDAY AND FRIDAY NIGHT...WITH A PERIOD OF BLIZZARD CONDITIONS EXTENDING DOWN TO LAKE TAHOE AND TRUCKEE FRIDAY NIGHT.

ANY BREAKS IN THE SNOWFALL DURING THIS TIME PERIOD ARE EXPECTED TO BE SHORT LIVED CAUSING TRAVEL IN THE SIERRA AND NORTHEAST CALIFORNIA TO BE DIFFICULT. TRAVEL WILL BE PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING...IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE...FROM THE TAHOE BASIN NORTHWARD INTO SIERRA"
 
Someone posted in a TGR thread (below) that while everyone dreams of insane amounts of snow like that, the best thing about it will be the extra base for spring skiing.

I've been in Mammoth when they had 8 feet in 2 days
It sounds great and all, And we need the snow for sure
But..... in reality...... the whole place shuts down
Good luck on 395 ....... they will just shut that thing down
The avy danger will be too high to open anything steep enough to ride in that much snow
It'll take 3 days to get everything open and back to normal
It sure will help out the base though
 
Since Kirkwood is maybe 2 hours longer drive from LA area than Mammoth, and the powder tends to be better in Kirkwood, doesn't it make sense to drive to Kirkwood to catch powder after a dump, esp. when the storm is windy? I suppose it would require waiting out the storm, though, as the roads would be bad heading to either resort.
 
Yeah looks like a big one for sure. But I think the main record breaker will be the winds. At least that's how it looks with the current model runs. winds will be nuking big time up and down the sierra. but not just there, the winds are very anomalously strong across the whole Great Basin with this event. The strongest crest level winds ive ever seen forecasted for the wasatch. Wouldn't be surprised if Baldy at alta gusted to 120mph early on Sat. Not huge compared to many ranges, but the highest i think ive seen on baldy is 115mph.

Too bad white mtn summit research stn (at 14,000ft in the whites/inyos) anemometer is down. I'll be keeping an eye on other stns though.
 
gwest":3t739oih said:
Yeah looks like a big one for sure. But I think the main record breaker will be the winds. At least that's how it looks with the current model runs. winds will be nuking big time up and down the sierra. but not just there, the winds are very anomalously strong across the whole Great Basin with this event. The strongest crest level winds ive ever seen forecasted for the wasatch. Wouldn't be surprised if Baldy at alta gusted to 120mph early on Sat. Not huge compared to many ranges, but the highest i think ive seen on baldy is 115mph.

Too bad white mtn summit research stn (at 14,000ft in the whites/inyos) anemometer is down. I'll be keeping an eye on other stns though.
Click to expand...

Looks like we could get hit pretty hard here....what are you thinking for totals gwest??

Thanks.

M
 
Just finished up the utahskiweather.com forecast. Unfortunately, this doesn't look to be an 'enjoyable' storm. As mentioned before, high winds. Maybe a good one to see how denali worthy your hardshell is. Looks like about a foot on Saturday, starting out as decently dense snow, but quickly becoming medium density. Of course none of that probably matters much with hurricane-force winds. Sunday afternoon/evening into night looks like a smaller storm, of the 5-8" variety, ..but it's still 3 days out, so we'll see how it shapes up over the next couple days.

Instead of copy+pasting a whole bunch of stuff, I'll just link to the
discussion

Anyone planning on skiing Lake Tahoe this weekend??
 
Heavenly did not open Friday due to wind and South Lake Tahoe received a lot of rain. See http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/articl ... /948573692

Winds have died down from yesterday when then top of Alpine reported steady 105-110 mph in the early afternoon with gusts over 150 and a max of 165.

Today Heavenly reports 3-4 feet new and expects delayed opening due to snow safety. Kirkwood reports 4-5 feet new and Sierra, which ran some lifts on Friday, reports 26-48" new.

San Jose, CA received 1.83 inches of rain which is the highest daily amount since 1.92 inches fell in 1895. Yes, that is over 100 years ago.
 
Yeah that Ward weather station near tahoe is a great one, and seems to be the winner for this event.

Our winds weren't quite as high as i expected. Baldy at Alta hit 101mph, and i think the highest in the wasatch was 105mph. The craziest part ended up being the snow water equivalent (SWE). Just over 4" at alta!! 3.5-4" in the Cottonwoods and Park City, who saw a lot of graupel. 1.5-2" over the rest of the wasatch. I would expect that 4" in 24hrs is some sort of record. Anyway, accordingly, LCC (not sure about BCC) was closed in the morning, and Snowbird and alta were interlodged.
 
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