12-25-2019 Update 9:45PM

A cold upper low was located west of Paso Robles at this time and will slowly making its way south down the coast. The Eastern Sierra near Mammoth Lakes will experience some light snowfall tonight into the morning hours. Amounts will be light., 1 to 3 inches.

However, the Owens Valley is expected to be hit hard with snowfall overnight and throughout the day on Thursday. Winter Weather Advisories are hoisted by the National Weather Service  beginning at 10:00PM tonight through Thursday at 10:00PM.  the forecast from the National Weather service is calling for 1 to 3 inches over night and 2 to 4 inches Thursday….  Travel is expected to be difficult.  If your heading south on 395 Thursday AM, be sure to check road conditions and carry chains.

 

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Mammoth Mt Picked up some 17 inches of snow from the last storm system. Now cold snow showery weather to persist through the 26th.  Short wave ridging will answer the call for some fine fair weather both Friday and Saturday.

The chances of a major storm over the next week or two is not high as the AO (Arctic Oscillation) goes into to its positive phase. That effectively keeps Arctic Air bottled up well up into Canada and Alaska. There is some sign that the AO will weaken and go neutral  during the 2nd week of January.

You may notice that our latest series of storms have split south with most of the energy going into Southern CA  and Northern Baja. Our snowfall from the last system brought about a foot over Mammoth Mt with another 5 to 7 inches on Monday. The 5 to 7 inches was from upslope as cyclonic flow moved east to the south of us.  This pattern was for told in my October 22nd post as I analyzed the CPC Winter Forecast.  SEE: https://mammothweather.com/page/7/