Sunday February 10th

 

On the road today Sunday……….just a quick couple of the notes…

We’re getting closer to the mid week period and the AR is definetly trending more toward the Central and Southern Sierra for the upcoming week.  The AR gets energized by a cold short wave coming from the Gulf of AK which stretches southwest and picked up energy from a Kona Low…Currenly north of the Hawaiian Islands. This is the source of the subtropical fetch that will combine with a colder more dynamic system, as the moisture approaches the central west coast. What the GFS solution suggests is to leave enough of the Kona energy intact so that short wave #2 or #3 can pick up additional moisture later in the week for an additional AR that following weekend.  I have not seen the new ECMWF..so I do not know if this is a reasonable outlook….. Needless to say,   Givin the possibility of an additional AR….the QPF is quite high on this mornings GFS run through the end of this week.   The mid week storm is close enough in time to say that the Moutain has another good 3 to 5 feet coming mid week.  This is going to be a warmer storm and so the snow level my go to 7500 feet by Wednesday afternoon…..more later…

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs..,.,,,?

 

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Yes…Its true!  Just as you thought it was safe to go out side again another couple of storms are on the way. Winter Storm Warnings are hoisted by the NWS beginning at 4:00PM Friday through 10:00PM Sunday. For the Town, the combination of the two storms with the 2nd one Saturday night and Sunday being the colder and strongest, some 8 to 16 inches is expected. For Mammoth Mt,  between 2 and 3 feet.

These two weather systems will bullseye the Northern Sierra best with Kirkwood getting the better shot! Nevertheless we will not complain with another 2 to 3 feet headed our way atop Old Woolly!  Expect high temps in town in the mid 20s with lows in the mid teens…..

Next week brings the possibility of the AR for parts of CA.  As touted 5 days ago, it favors Southern CA, however, the details have to be worked out…..  For the most part, the storm will become warmer, before it turns colder again…The Southern Stream becomes confluent with the northern stream, so this is a heavy snow pattern for the Sierra.

I will not update until Monday unless I can’t stand it! 🙂

Here is a portion of the post for the extended outlook from a forecaster at WSFO-RENO at 2:00PM THURSDAY

A large scale high pressure anomaly continues to strengthen in the northern Pacific Ocean with a corresponding large scale trough over the western U.S. during the second half of next week. This will keep the door open for more strong storms to drop out of the
Gulf of Alaska and into the Sierra. During the same time the sub-tropical jet is forecast to strengthen over Southern California. This setup could allow for warm pacific moisture to combine with cold Alaskan air as a deep trough digs into the west coast. As the
system is currently being advertised by computer simulations, this is one of the Sierra`s classic heavy snow patterns. With both the sub-tropical and polar jets forecast to meet in California the storms will be very dynamic. This can mean a few different things, including that predictability can be challenging, especially when it comes to snow levels. It can also mean rapid heavy accumulations of snow. The current forecast is for snow levels to jump up as the system makes landfall and then rapidly drop again as cold air moves into the region. But, like I said, this is one of the areas where a lot of change could be possible in the forecast. There is still a good deal of uncertainty this far out, especially for down here in the valleys. But for the Sierra, it seems likely they will again be measuring snow in feet.

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs………………………………