What is this, Southern California?

C

cweinman

New member
Tons of snow and no way to get to it. Snowbowl reports 57 to 82 inches in the last 7 days with 24-40 inches yesterday alone and is closed down. Sunrise same thing.

Every major road out of the Phoenix metro area to the north and east is closed due to snow or landslides (or a combination thereof). Acquaintance of mine drove up to Telluride yesterday in the height of the storm and I thought he was nuts. Looks like he was a genius since only way out in that direction now is to go all the way down to Tucson and wrap into New Mexico on I25 (which I'm doing later). What the hell is this, California? :-k
 
I would say this storm cycle slightly underperformed its hype here in SoCal. Snow totals were 3-4 ft vs. 4-5 expected, though maybe we'll get a few inches more. The heavy rain was only an hour or two each day, fairly light the rest of the time so there hasn't been major Station Fire mudslide damage yet. But in Arizona it has lived up to its billing, with Snowbowl getting 7+ feet of snow like Mammoth.

Pushing farther on the pattern was varied. LCC got the same 40+ inches as Brian Head (admin and some of the weather forecasters made the right call here), but the Ogden areas got ~2 feet and the Tetons less than a foot. The big 4+ foot numbers in Colorado are limited (so far) to Purgatory and Wolf Creek, with the other western mountains less than 2 feet. The Front Range areas are still hurting, as none of them have had more than 6 inches in the past 9 days. None of them are fully open, and A-Basin is only 1/3 open. Taos only 20 inches, but I suspect the storm is not done in New Mexico yet. No surprise that Sun Valley got 29 inches with its unusual south-exposed microclimate.
 
We're not done here yet either.

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My dad has been updating me with slc weather all day, think any of this storm tonight and tommarrow will make it to the powder thirsty northern CO resorts(maybe steamboat and winter park). Also Silverton is now reporting 50inch from the storm with more coming, to bad red mountian and coal bank passes are closed. As a side note the snow at ski sante fe has been decent around 2 ft this am as reported by my friend there. Taos no so much but maybe it will get hit tonight. Happy riding you lucky bastards
 
I've seen some impressive rain totals out of all this. That the Station fire areas didn't get buried - I don't know know if that's good enough to say "didn't live up to the hype, however slightly." Ask people in Long Beach about the storm's power. The IE seemed to get nailed really good. It was pouring on the 15 on the way up this morning and back down today.

Myself, I have never heard and seen so much winter T&L from home. Snow Valley reported 3 feet just Thursday into Friday morning and I think 6' overall. I think Bear is reporting 44 to 50" so far, so there's the 4'+.
 
Snow totals may have come close to predicted as the storm lingered in the mountains today even though it did not rain so much in the L.A. Basin.

Silverton's number is credible this time as it's similar to Purgatory's.
 
SoCal Rider":2e1gktwp said:
Snowbowl is up to 92" and Zonies still can't get to it. Frustrating.
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Sunrise is still shut as of tomorrow (1/26/2010) with no power, claiming they have 6 to 9 feet of snow untouched.

I only was able to make it out of Phoenix to Albuquerque for a long weekend by detouring through Deming, NM via I10 (all roads north and east of Phoenix were still closed as of Friday eveing). Tried to ski up at Sandia on Sunday and managed to wait in line for the tram for 45 minutes (mistake number one), only to find out that they closed down the ski resort shortly after opening due to wind-hold on their lifts. Based on the conditions at 6000 feet (strong north wind, temps in the low 20s), sitting on Sandia's lifts with a summit temperature of 5 degrees and strong north wind would have been no fun (mistake number two). Fortunately, some wine tasting saved the day.

Coming back today on 260 over the Mogollan Rim, snow banks are a good 4 to 8 feet tall with probably 3 to 4 feet of settled snow at least above 7000 feet. If they get another big storm up there, I have no idea how they're going to get the roads cleared.

If I could, I'd sneak a day at Snowbowl or Sunrise this week, but alas, I think I'm way too slammed at work for it unfortunately. Making things worse are show tickets Sunday night, and a spouse who wants to see the Grand Canyon with the thick blanket of snow there Saturday, likely making skiing this weekend a no go. :?
 
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