Western Weather 2016-17

Joel over at Opensnow seems ridiculously optimistic about the next 10 days...

http://opensnow.com/dailysnow/colorado/post/6550

Example:
2016-12-07.003.jpeg
 
That's a cherry picked example because Buffalo Pass is the snowiest microclimate in Colorado with historical SWE's comparable to Alta. Nonetheless his overall forecast for the northern and central mountains of 20 inches will make up for some of November's deficit.
 
Over here similar model runs are predicting 150" over the next 10 days via two "atmospheric river" events. Evan at WasatchSnowForecast.com (and OpenSnow's UT forecaster) is doing his best to temper expectations, but even if we get only half of that it's going to be amazing. Somewhere in between would be effin' spectaular! Now I just need to get this ankle to cooperate.
 
Speaking of which:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnNpmrO_YjU[/video]
 
Evan has mostly taken the second AR event off the table for Utah. But you're still getting 2-3 feet this weekend.

The Sierra will be getting this one too but snow levels will be high and Tahoe will see a lot of rain below 8,000 feet. Fortunately Mammoth can handle that so we expect to drive Sunday and ski Monday/Tuesday next week.
 
Tony Crocker":38o8jfcp said:
Evan has mostly taken the second AR event off the table for Utah. But you're still getting 2-3 feet this weekend.
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And for now the second storm next week, still within the 10-day window, may make up the difference.
 
I'm a bit confused how Brian Head and Eagle Point in UT have very modest forecasts for this weekend considering the 24-36" forecast for Wolf Creek in Colo for example... Would have thought this would be the weekend for Admin to go south, but I guess not.

Looking robust in central mtns this am with some niceness fri/sat too. I suspect that combination of manpower and lack of enough skier on the hill is keeping a lot of terrain closed at some resorts in Colo temporarily. Prime example is Copper that I keep watching since my pass is good there. Lots of stuf could be open, but they just don't want or haven't done all the work to open several more lifts so far it appears. Others have opened quite a bit, like Vail at ~4000 acres open (including Blue sky).
 
EMSC":26nfkc28 said:
I suspect that combination of manpower and lack of enough skier on the hill is keeping a lot of terrain closed at some resorts in Colo temporarily.
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I'm not buying that. Percents of terrain open are way below what's average for the Front Range resorts since 1988. What's different about 2016 that Breck and Copper are a quarter open now vs. half open on an average Dec. 15? My answer is the zero snow that was on the ground Nov. 15, plus too warm temps to even make snow. The usual one foot+ per week of Colorado fluff falling since then (Breck 68 inches, Copper 62) takes some time to build an adequate base. The places that are half or more open, Steamboat, Vail and Winter Park, are the areas that get more snow and nearly always get terrain open faster than the other places.

Nonetheless you have a ~2 foot storm on the way, so I expect these numbers to look a lot better this upcoming weekend.

As far as Utah is concerned, it makes little sense to go south this weekend when LCC is predicted to be spectacular on Saturday.
 
Tony Crocker":1ukrvijd said:
What's different about 2016 that Breck and Copper are a quarter open now vs. half open on an average Dec. 15?
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I partially disagree with your assessment; I think that the speed of accumulating snowfall is also impacting. Eg all the signs, ropes, etc... that have to be put up to open/partially open terrain on a new lift; and/or not enough weekday skiers to bother opening new stuff. My guesstimate on this is the fact that even Eldora is opening terrain on natural snow which is almost unheard of prior to late Dec or so in a 'normal' year.

Tony Crocker":1ukrvijd said:
As far as Utah is concerned, it makes little sense to go south this weekend when LCC is predicted to be spectacular on Saturday.
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I agree. My confusion is how LCC is expected to be getting so much while it's southern Colo expected to get the most out of the weekend storm and relatively little in southern Utah. Rather weird storm track or something going on. (northern Colo with good expectations is still only ~1/2 of southern Colo expectations for this weekend).
 
EMSC":2y1m7c4e said:
My confusion is how LCC is expected to be getting so much while it's southern Colo expected to get the most out of the weekend storm and relatively little in southern Utah.
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There are many variations among NW to SE storm tracks. I have observed with some annoyance over the past 5 years that the one thing they have in common is that they miss SoCal. :evil:
 
jasoncapecod":bq3gyt6a said:
I am flying into Reno on Sunday. Staying in truckee. I think I am in trouble. Trying to change flight to slc
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Good luck! The forecast I read from the Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows website today was predicting rain this weekend at all but the highest elevations........
 
jasoncapecod":2u3u589z said:
Is driving from Reno to slc doable if jet blue doesn't let me change
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It is. On dry roads it's only about 7 hours on a pretty direct stretch of I-80. Be aware, however, that it's the most remote stretch of Interstate that I've ever driven. You're not alone on the road -- there are plenty of others -- but that portion of I-80 travels through absolutely nuttin' other than the very occasional small town/legal brothel. You're crossing a series of north/south oriented Great Basin mountain ranges at relatively low elevations, and the very broad, very flat desert valleys that separate them. It's pretty easy driving and with the temperatures forecast for this storm, at those elevations I'd expect little other than rain.

Actually, I'd imagine that for a Northeasterner that drive would be a pretty cool adventure. :cool: Just top off your fuel tank long before you think that you need to, for there are some pretty long stretches between gas stations.
 

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Admin":29x8pymc said:
Actually, I'd imagine that for a Northeasterner that drive would be a pretty cool adventure.
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I did that drive this past May. Other than about the 90 mile stretch between Reno and a Lovelock, it's actually a reasonably pretty drive, especially the area around the Ruby Mtns. Much more visually interesting than I remembered.
 
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