4:00PM Saturday the 7th…

Its been a wet day in the high country.  Mammoth Mountain has picked up about 6 inches at the main lodge at 4:00PM with just slop in town. It is possibly that the upper Mt may have received about 9 inches as an est.   Tonight is the night for snow as the cold front approaches.  We could still get another foot at the village and another 12 to 18 inches on the mountain by Sunday late AM.  The Front will move through before Sunrise.  And as unstable as the system is, there may even be some thunder snow!!

Next week will be dry with the next pattern change near the Winter Solstice.  Better timing later this week…..:-)

 

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The Sat Pics this afternoon look pretty interesting. A closed low spinning about 140 west and 40 North.  The system is pretty slow moving as it bottoms out into the long wave position over the next 12 hours or so. The systems looks occluded now, but will open up Saturday Morning as it moves on shore. The wave is expected to sheer apart Sunday AM.  There is plenty of moisture with this one and good onshore flow. The initial snowfall will be from warm frontal overrunning ahead of the cold front, which will be expected to enter the region on Saturday. So Friday will see light snowfall with the heavier accumulations on Saturday. The warm front will be associated with higher snow levels as snowfall accumulation will remain above 7000 feet before the snow level coming down after the Cold FROPA Saturday. The snow level will come down to about 6,000 feet after the front passes. On Sunday expect snow showers with a snow level about 5500 feet.  AT the Moment the QPF suggests snowfall amounts into the 1 to 2 foot range around the town of Mammoth with some 2 to 3 feet on Mammoth Mt, all by this Sunday.

 

Longer Range:  It appears that the pattern will become warmer and drier next with with periods of high clouds. There is another weak weather system mid week, but it does not look very impressive. So most likely it will just bring high clouds and breeze over the upper elevations.

 

Tropical Teleconnections…

The latest CPC discussion early in the week indicated that numerous modes of tropical variability were at play across the Indian Ocean during the past week, resulting in a complicated perspective. The players are, Easterly Rossbys Waves (Gravity Waves) , an old Kelvin wave and the ongoing IOD over the Indian Ocean. The upshot was that the MJO would spend week one in phase 2 and week 2 in phases 3 and 4.   Phase 3 is wet for CA in December, so it remains to be seen if the latest 6 to 10 day and 8 to 14 day outlooks from the CPC verify much drier than normal as indicated in today’s outlook.