More of the white stuff

Winter is still humming along for most of the US…but we are starting to settle into the “late” winter pattern, where we see a few days of storm followed by a longer dry-period.

We were sort of unlucky to have the latest round of storms move over the Sierras and the Rockies this weekend…the Rockies in particular, since Aspen/Buttermilk Mountain were the home of the winter x-games this year. In fact the storm and new snowfall made conditions a bit treacherous at times. Check out some of the latest x-games news from Fuel.tv here.

VIDEO: Travis Rice, Torah Bright, Shaun White Win

Anyway back to the weather (cause that is what we are here to talk about)…right now we are seeing a nice wet-low pressure holding position over the central United States. It will start to push slowly NE and clip the Eastern Great Lakes region as it moves into Canada over the next couple of days but in the meantime we can expect it to continue to dump new snow across the exposed resorts. Check out the NOAA national map…you can see the broad low stretching from the West Coast across the Rockies and into the Midwest states.



In particular this storm is going to drop a bit of new snow across Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming ski resorts. Some of the top spots can expect nearly 10-12” of new snow over the next 24-48 hours.

The West Coast and the Sierras will also see another cold front, albeit slightly drier than the last one, move over the California coast on Monday and follow the other low-pressure in the middle of the country off into Canada by the middle of the week. There won’t be a ton of snow in the following system but we can still expect 1-3” of new snow for resorts like Mammoth and Tahoe before the storm moves on. Add that new pow to the stuff that fell earlier in the weekend and it makes for pretty nice conditions for those areas by the second half of the week.

Colorado and the rest of the Rockies look like they will be into sunnier, but probably winder, conditions by the end of the week as well.

Over on the East Coast it isn’t looking as snowy as the other parts of the country. There will be some new powder in the ever consistent “lake effect areas” where the major export is snow apparently…but not much else will be dropping over the NE…and as usual all we can expect in the SE is rain and mosquitoes.

Long-range is looking a bit bare…we have a new ridge of high-pressure building over the West Coast that is going to shut down the storm track for a few days…expect minimal snowfall through the end of the week and into next weekend. Looks like our next semi-significant snow will be early during the following week as some new weather starts to move into the Pacific NW and eventually hits the higher elevations in the Sierras.

Anyhoo that is all I got for tonight…I’ll be back with a new forecast by next Monday!

WTF happened to winter?…oh there it is

Ok…besides some pockets up in the NE and Eastern Canada, where they got hit by an always lovely “Alberta clipper", there hasn’t been much winter-like weather.

The Pacific NW and California have been in full-on summer mode with nearly 80-degree weather and blinding sunshine. Even the normally socked in San Fran Bay Area was sunny and 70.

The culprit has been a couple of wicked high-pressure holding over the high desert areas between the Sierras and the Rockies. They have basically locked down storm movement for most of the US except for the cold dry systems that slip in from Canada (aka winter’s summer house).



Unfortunately these high-pressures are not going anywhere for the next few days…so we will have more nice weather and slushy mountain conditions for most of the US western resorts.

The only new snow that we are going to see this work week is the activity holding around the great lakes that is threatening to continue to drop new snow over the next couple of days. The Southern Great-lakes areas like Ohio will have another 1-2” of snow through Wednesday. Further east the New York and New England states will have 3-4” of new snow…possible close to 6” at some of the luckier resorts.

Long-range is looking a lot more interesting.



The ridges do break down in about 3-days and shift to the east as they start to erode. At the same time we see three storms, one coming right over California, another slipping in from the Gulf of Alaska, and a third low-pressure that moves out of mainland Mexico. This is going to develop some dynamic atmospheric mixing, you know… the sort of shit that means bad news for Trailer Parks everywhere.

From this new mix of systems I am expecting much more new snow to begin falling at higher elevations across the Sierras by Thursday and the Rockies by the upcoming weekend. It is hard to tell how much will come down at this point but with the more humid/warm moisture moving in from the South I think we could get a decent dusting at a few of the resorts. I think by the middle-end of next week it would be good to already have a tripped planned somewhere fun.

Anyways…work on your tan for the next couple of days and then start gearing up for the upcoming weekend and next week.

Warming up a bit

After a couple of strong weeks of snowfall it looks like we are going to see some sunnier skies and a little warmer weather that may let us enjoy all the new snow.

There is a rather dry and chilly, cold-front moving through the middle of the US and over the great lakes that will put a couple of inches of new snow around the Great Lakes and over the NE…mostly through Michigan, Vermont, and New Hampshire…but that is going to be most of the new powder that we see this week.

Look for most of the higher elevation Michigan resorts to see another 4-6” of new snow over the next 48-72 hours. The NE spots will be closer to 2-4” except in those Lake-Effect affected areas.

The majority of our weather is going to be driven by a large ridge of high-pressure that going stack up most of the US West Coast and most of the Southern/Central Rockies. This will shut down a lot of the storm track for the Western Ski resorts but may allow a couple of weak cold fronts to move out of Canada, brining mostly wind…but a little snow as well, to Montana and the Dakotas.



At this point I am not expecting any significant snowfall for the next several days…but since we already have plenty of snow it will be good to get some nicer conditions in order to enjoy what has already piled up.

The Long-range forecast is also looking pretty quiet…that high-pressure is expected to stick around for most of the week and that is going to be a massive obstacle to new storms. Don’t look for this high to move out this week…we might see it start to break down about midweek next week. I guess that we are just going to have to enjoy the sun.

Have a good one!

Reloading the Storm Track

We have already been seeing a pretty good winter season for most of the country…it has been a little dry in Colorado but most of Western Rockies, the Pacific NW, and all of California have been seeing some heavy snowfall for the last couple of weeks. So heavy in fact that there has been some pretty heavy and deadly avalanche action. Check out this story from Alison Berkley…she has a ton of the details on just how dangerous this season has been.

Avalanche Danger Hits Resorts Throughout West

Over on the East Coast there has been some consistent snowfall around the Great Lakes and over into the Northeast…not as consistent as the stuff out west but still healthy at times.

The current forecast is looking really good for winter weather. We have a string of storms moving in from the North Pacific that are stretching “out the back” and over to the Aleutians that are going to pile on the snow across Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. Eventually these storms are going to push across the northern half of the US and dump more powder over Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah throughout the early part of the week.



These storms do make it across the US later in the week and should have more snow, and some really wild weather stretching snowfall across the NE states and some severe weather.

Check out the storms stacking up out the back



Like I said it looks like the majority of the new snow over the next couple of days is going to hit in Washington, which is going to see 1.5 to 2 feet of new snow over the next 48 hours.

Crystal Mountain - 20-25"
Timberline - 15-20"

Oregon is going to be close behind with nearly a 1-foot+ of pow-pow.

Mt Bachelor - 10-15"

Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana get a little less over the next two days but should see more later in the week as well. Here is the next 2 days.

Sun Valley - 6-8"
Big Sky - 5-7"
Alta - 3-5"
Solitude - 3-5"
Jackson Hole - 3-5"

Long-range…with all those storms stacking up in the North Pacific it looks like we have a long storm train moving through the higher latitudes of the US. We can expect some steady cold temps and consistent snow/ice/rain for most of the northern US and Canada resorts for at least the next week but likely through the upcoming weekend and into next week. Looks like a lot of fresh tracks!

Check back my next update will be next Monday!