Snowfall is looking light this week

The snow/winter season had a good start over the last couple of weeks (Check out the East Coast Shred Report #1) but despite some early snowfalls we are still seeing some large enough gaps between storms that base-depths around the country are still a little sparse.

This week doesn’t look like it is going to help that much either.

Right now we have a broad area of high-pressure that is holding over most of the Southwest Region and the lower portion of the Rockies that is keeping most of the mid-latitude storm activity in check.

There are a couple of colder low-pressures that are slipping through around the Canda/US border that are sneaking some light snowfall across the higher latitudes and the near ever-present lake-effect snow over by the Great Lakes areas but other than those two spots there just isn’t enough dynamic weather occurring that we need to help pour on the snow.

Check out the latest NWS map…you can see those high pressures holding over the Central/SW United States.



The next few days aren’t super promising either…







But as we get closer to the end of the week things do start to improve a touch as more storm activity starts to push in from the Gulf of Alaska



The long-range forecast is looking a bit better…in particular there are quite a few strong storms brewing up in the North Pacific right now, (cranking out some large surf for exposed areas as well).

I know, I know…Adam, why should we care about something happening way out over the ocean?

Well it comes down to atmospheric circulation…the storms that occur over land generally don’t just spring up all by themselves, they are always influenced by the storm track as a whole, not just one little section of it. So if the storm track, even several thousand miles out to sea becomes more active it means that more energy for storm development is available to the “whole” storm track, which eventually will translate into more unstable weather over your favorite resort, which equals snow and fun for us.

With what I am seeing in the North Pacific right now and the way that the forecast charts are starting to behave waaaay out at the end of the GFS wind model run, I think that we are going to start to see a couple of stronger systems lining up for the US mainland by the middle of next week…how much snow remains to be seen but at least the storm activity will be more favorable than what we have right now.

Weather Guy: Snow Turkeys

Snow over the last few days across the US has been pretty sparse except for the Great Lakes areas that seem to get a near constant level of lake-effect snowfall.

The good news is that we are going to see a lot of new storm activity over the next few days that will be bringing plenty of snow across most of the country as we head into the holiday weekend.

Right now we have a storm pushing over the Great Lakes and Mid-East states that will actually stall in place for a couple of days before pushing up over the Northeast part of the Country. We can expect a few inches of snow across resorts in NY, Vermont, and eventually up in New Hampshire and Maine. Whiteface in NY and Sugarbush in VT are both showing some new snowfall, and it looks like 2-4” more will fall in the next coupel of days.

Check out the current NWS national map…


The biggest white circle is the low-center that is anchoring over the Great Lakes…you can even see the cold font trailing down through the South and over Texas, potentially setting up some wild weather for those areas (but no snow so really I don’t think we care).

The other interesting thing on that map is the second smaller low that is forming off the California Coast. It is this storm (and one to the north) that is going to help drive the snowfall for the next week.

This little storm is a warmer low than something that would form at the higher latitudes. Since it has a wet-airmass it is able to hold a lot more moisture than a colder system would. What ends up happening is that this wet-low moves over the colder drier airmass stretched across the Midwest/Pacific NW areas and starts to take on the same characteristics. As is cools and gains altitude it looses its ability to hold water and since it cools rapidly in the higher elevations…bam!...we start to see new snow.

Since this low moves across the US and eventually links up with another colder low coming out of Canada we can expect more snow for California Resorts like Mammoth and Tahoe during the early part of the week. The Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming resorts will have new snow by midweek and the Northeast areas get more snow by the end of the week. Like I said…lots of new snow…lets cross our fingers that it starts breaking open the resorts so we can get some good early season riding in.

Check out the national weather forecast for the next few days.

Monday Morning

Tuesday Night

Thursday Morning

Just what we like to see…lots of purple and blue in the Mountain areas.

Long-range it looks like a few more storms lining up out the back in the North Pacific. Looks like we could see a few solid snowfalls over the next couple of weeks.

Check back next Monday for the latest update.

Will work for pow-pow

Things are looking a little slow this week weatherwise…well at least from a snowfall standpoint.

Right now we have the remnants of cold-front that pushed over the East Coast early in the weekend finally starting to move out. There is still a bit of lake-effect snowfall around the NE states…in particular western NY and Northern PA seem to be seeing some decent droppage. Check out the Fox Weather HIDEF radar…



The 2-4” is probably being generous but any resorts in the area will be able to capitalize on the cold conditions and add some man-made to the natural stuff.

Here is the NWS snowfall forecast…you can see that the lake-effect snow is going to hang around for at least a day. This is showing the conditions for Monday night. Right now there aren’t many resorts open in this region but it does look like many will be opening as we head into next weekend.



Unfortunately the rest of the country is looking pretty sparse…with this map the white stuff equals bad. I am not expecting any new snow for the other regions.

The culprit is a broad ridge of high pressure that is filling in behind the storm that moved off the East Coast. There are actually 2 ridges that are blending into one large high-pressure and is extended from the southwest US through the Rockies.



Looking further out in the forecast snowfall conditions do improve. We are going to see a new storm moving out of the North Pacific and over the northwest US. Check out the extended NWS forecast map…



You can see that the storm, which has some warmer air-mass in it, doesn’t do much for snowfall along the West Coast Coastal ranges but it does start to cool off as it moves inland. By Friday and into early Saturday we can expect new snowfall in Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho, and Western Montana. Right now it doesn’t look particularly heavy but a lot will depend on how the storm behaves as it actually starts to develop.

So to sum up…not much happening for the next few days…just a bit of snow around the Great Lakes for the next 24-48 hours, then things slow down by midweek. Further out we will have new storm activity pushing over the NW as we head into the weekend.

Have a great week!

Snow-Forecast Outlook – National Roundup (Yeehaw!)

(11/09/2008) - Well the US snow season is getting off to a good start…I am already seeing some reports of resorts starting to open across the country...hell some of them are reporting that they are starting operations earlier this year than they ever have before. Here check out this link from one of the other Fuel.tv bloggers…

FiveSpot: Snowboard Season Has Started!

Anyway on to the forecast.

Right now we have a couple of storms/cold fronts pushing across the US…in particular there are two areas of severe weather, one over the Northwest US and the other holding over the Northeast, that are showing some potential for snowfall. Check out the weather.fox.com HiDef radar…you can see that the storm in the Northeast is cropping up activity in areas that traditionally get some lake effect weather.



Over in the Northwest we have a good sized low-pressure moving out of the Gulf of Alaska and over the US mainland…stretching the bad weather from the Pacific NW out to the Rockies.

What makes this storm even more interesting is there is a warmer mid-latitude low-pressure starting to interact from the Southwest that is helping to add some energy into the colder storm in the north. This dumps in a lot of extra instability in the atmosphere as the two lows merge…instability is good because it means more winds, more moisture, and more potential snowfall.

What this means for us shredding…

Right now neither system looks like it will dump a ton of snow, probably around an inch in both regions (naturally the higher mountains and areas that help concentrate snowfall will see a bit more). But the mix of stormy weather, cold air temps, and already increasing base depths will definitely enhance snow-making capabilities of the affected resorts.

Long-range Forecast

Right now it looks like the low affecting the Northwest will move off the rockies and push over the great lakes and start to lose some of its energy. Not much is expected from that system as it pushes further up into Canada later this week.

The next potential snowmaking system moves in around midweek…this will be another storm moving out of the Gulf of Alaska and pushing over the Pacific NW. Most of its energy is going to be focused on Washington (the State) and some of Northern Oregon as well as British Columbia.

The center of the storm will track across Canada but we can expect the lower latitude portions of the cold front to pass over most of the northern US states potentially brining another inch+ of snow for the high mountain areas in those regions as we head into the second part of the week.

The forecast breakdown

So while we aren’t seeing any storms completely dumping anywhere in the US anytime soon we are seeing enough activity that we can continue to build on the layers that have been laid down over the last couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that ol’ mother nature can keep up the pace.

The snow forecast

This will be the new Snow Forecast...we are currently working on the layout and should have our first post up next week.