Although another round of cold unsettled weather is likely Sunday night into Monday night, and possibly again Wednesday night into Thursday, there are signs that the long-awaited transition to warmer, spring weather over California is beginning to take shape in the not too distant future..  For the time being, the long-range outlook, which is typically unstable this time of the year continues to show the active pattern of the past 6 weeks continuing into next week. However, the polar Jet looks like it will shift north by the following weekend. Much weaker westerlies are progged into the last week of the month, with the exception of one cold storm the end of the month.  Overall, this means that unsettled periods are shown to be less frequent during weeks 2 and 3. However, this is not to say that we are done for the Spring, as the usual cut off low season has yet to develop. Furthermore,  the weakening of the upper jet over the pacific at this latitude, will change the way precipitation develops over the sierra. Convection, upper diffluence and unstable air that accompanies, will play a more dominant role in the precipitation process over California. This is in contrast to the strong upper divergence of Winter and early Spring that the upper jet supplies.

As far as sensible weather, the next few days will be warmer with highs in Mammoth reaching about 60 by Saturday and the chilly lows in the teens of late will rise into the 30s by Sunday. The next weather system moving into the High Country Sunday will bring an increase of wind by afternoon with snowfall developing Sunday night and continuing into Monday night. The storm has the potential to bring at least a foot to the Upper Mountain by Monday evening.

For your powder hounds…..plan on Tuesday morning the 17th for one of the last cold powder days of Spring, as the next storm may not arrive until the very end of the month. A few more storms are possible in May…

 

The Dweeber…………:-)