It was a chilly day in Mammoth Monday with an inch or two of snowfall into town and a few inches over the upper elevations. The Split Trof that spun up a closed low took its time moving through Southern CA Monday. It brought between 6 to 10 inches of snow to the Southern Sierra and a few inches to Mammoth Mountain. This morning dawned with high cirrus and the pines all white again. High temps remained in the upper 30s Monday while early morning lows were well down into the 20s this morning. A hard freeze occurred once again for much of Mono County.

 

On a larger scale, the pattern at 500MB is transiting to a ridge in the west with a Trof in the Midwest. The Long wave Trof over the far Eastern Pacific is progressing east today with one last short wave that will affect the far west and Great Basin with snow showers today through tonight. This short wave is not coming in from the west at this latitude. It is more of a NW slider. Its 130 Knot NW upper jet will enter the NW corner of California by late this afternoon and drive southeast over the Northern Sierra tonight. This is typically a windy pattern for the Central Sierra as the front Rt exit region usually brings down sloping winds to our region. So expect quite the breezy night tonight. By Wednesday the jet axis progresses east, as at the sometime the Eastern Pacific Ridge builds inland into California. Thus the headlined warm up begins in earnest Thursday, then through the weekend.  The Dweebs are expecting high temps well into the 60s by Saturday with summer like convection early next week.

 

Longer Range:

The long-range guidance shows the Spring thaw resuming this weekend through the end of next week…. Highs will remain mostly in the 60s this weekend through the following weekend.   The interseasonal outlook does hint at another but weaker Trof setting up over CA during the first week of June.

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs………………………………:-)