Wednesday AM:

Quick Update…

Brief Tonopah surface low develops all snow for the Town of Mammoth after Midnight tonight. Thus amounts by Friday AM could be 6 to 9 inches with most of it by Thursday night…

Amounts on Mammoth Mountain should be in the 12 to 18 inch class between 9K and 11K by Friday AM. The storm will be followed by an unsettled period Friday and Saturday with little if any accumulation. We go dry for the following week….   High temps today will be in the 50s today then 30s Thursday.

Some pretty cold nights are ahead for us this weekend with teens…..

 

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

Tuesday 2:40PM

 

forecast models developing pseudo Tonopah Low Thursday Morning and will have the effect of bringing the cold air in quicker.  It is obvious the models are not handling the QPF or snowfall potential as well as they normally do.

Thus will beef of snowfall amounts for our town as well as upper elevations as colder air gets in here quicker with wet fetch and combine with much higher amounts than expected this morning…..

Up to 8 inches is now expected in the Village with a foot plus at the main lodge and 18 inches over the Mammoth Crest….

 

More Later…………

 

WSW now hoisted for Midnight Wednesday night..

 

Tuesday AM Update:

Just a couple of notes to mention that the system looks to be slowing down a bit.  That is good news, as that will give the colder air a chance to get in here with more of the precipitation with it. To what degree is not known at this time.

CRFC has the Freezing level about 9700 ft at 4:00am Thursday with a snow level approx. 8200 feet. The freezing level falls to 8900 at 10:00am which equates to a snow level about between 7400 and 7900 with a tighter spread adjusted for more 700RH moisture. By 4:00pm Thursday, the freezing level is forecasted to be at 8300 with a snow level at 6800. By 10:00pm the freezing level should be at 6800 with a snow level at 5300, or down to the Mono County Valley floor.

The timing of the precipitation is critical in a system like this to determine the amount of snowfall in the towns of Mammoth and June. As you can see the snow is going to be pretty wet “early in the morning” Thursday at about the 8000 foot level. The best accumulations will occur early to mid afternoon for the Town.

Amounts in Town.  EST.  From 2 to 5 inches.  A lot of this depends upon the timing of moisture and how fast it moves through. The very latest guidance is showing it moving through slower now…..and so we could very well get more snow in town if the band remains in our vicinity well into the evening.

The Crest may get a foot….again this is subject to change depending upon how fast or slow the band moves through.  Timing is everything…..

Expect an update again Wednesday AM as the Dweebs have another day to look at it.

The Weekend:

The Weekend looks cold with the chance of some snow showers…..highs in the 30s lows in the teens

Beyond this storm there is a secondary short wave that will approach the coast Sunday night.  The new 12Z GFS has the systems trajectory on a path to the South Central Coast then SE which would benefit the Tehachapi Range and Southern California. I do not expect much more then some light snow showers from this system at most, early next week. However, the Owens Valley may benefit…especially the Southern Half.

Longer Range:

As mentioned over the past few days…The warm weather of the past few weeks will be over Thursday. At least for quite awhile. I see a predominant NW flow aloft similar to the weather last December. With the eastern pacific high parked further west. (retrogression) So we will becoming colder then normal with time and there will tend to be systems that become cut off or closed off over the great basin.  With a little luck we may end of getting one of those famous Tonopah Lows that gets stuck, providing upslope for days.  Although that is not in the forecast, I see the possibility of a potential pattern like that occurring later in February. Especially how blocky it has been over the far west.

The Tonopah Low

What needs to happen:

1. A stronger than normal high  pressure system off the California coast, along with ridging over the Pacific Northwest.

The resultant flow advects cold air from the interior of Canada into the warmer air mass over the Great Basin. This unstable situation is intensified by one of the following mechanisms:

(a)  A wave on a west-east oriented front.

(b)  A secondary low in an unstable air mass that follows the passage of a frontal low.

(c)  Beneath a cut-off low, or at the tip of a long wave trough, which has a jet maximum over the area.

 

Some hint of this pattern is suggested the following weekend………………

 

The Dweeber………………………….:-)

 

 

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Quick Update Monday:

Here are the bullet points

1. This is for the most part a 24 hour storm.

a. Thursday Morning through Friday Morning.

2. It will begin warm with the freezing level at 10,000 feet late Wednesday Night
a.  Main event for Mammoth is between 4:00am Thursday and 4:00pm Thursday
b. The Freezing level at 4:00 am over Mammoth will be 9500 feet. By 10:00am it drops to 8500. and by 4:00pm 7,000.
These are the freezing levels.  The snow level is usually between 1,000 and 1500 feet lower.
So by 10:00am the snow level could be a high as 7500 or as low as 7000 feet. Snow to water ratios will be low.
Based upon the QPF we will be lucky to get a foot of cement at 10,000 feet However sierra cement is more important that
any kind of snow we could hope for!

Post stormy weather will be showery with little additional accumulations….possibly a few inches Friday and Saturday. The system following this one will be too far off shore when it heads south down the coast to be if benefit.    Southern-California may get some of that.

Fantasy charts show the end of the warm weather as we have known it by Thursday. However, with the upper mid latitude ridge now forecasted to be out about 130 to 140 west….. NW sliders will keep mostly seasonal temps and windy weather more often than not, over the higher elevations next week.

Longest range has next significant storm about the 9th.

Happy Ground Hogs Day Sunday. Good chance he sees his shadow…..

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs…………………:-)

 

 

es…the Dweebs did say snow. That was not a mistake….

Best guess at the moment….12 to 18 inches over the Crest between Thursday and Sunday

This looks to be a storm in-between dry patterns.  The previous and current pattern was/is warm and dry the next one setting up for week two look cold and dry. In between patterns is a storm that is going to sneak through.

Here is what’s happening.

Powerhouse storm in the central pacific with an earlier 180Knott upper jet was responsible for huge waves this past week along the Ca coast.  By the time that storm gets into California later Thursday and Friday, it will be but a mere fraction of its former strength. Why?? You guessed it.. It runs into wall of high pressure. The upper ridge that has been with us all January is taking its toll on that storm.  However all is not lost.  The Storm will be responsible for splitting the upper ridge into two parts. One that will remain over Southern Ca Wednesday and the other that gets pushed up over Alaska at the same time. So what we have a sort of a weak break through of the westerlies  underneath that AK block and the remaining part of the upper high over Southern Ca. That southern portion gets suppressed to the south in response to the approaching and may I add weakening wave. There is another wave that will follows Saturday afternoon from the NNW bringing snow showers.

This all gets accomplished by the fact that the Hudson Bay low shifts east enough for the wave length to extend enough east for this to happen. The main point I want to make is what happens after the weekend. What happens after words is that the AK block redevelops west (retrogression) and a -WPO develops near the date line. This in turn pumps up an eastern pacific ridge further west of where it has been.  So the pattern change is associated with significant retrogression and the models are struggling on where to place the Eastern Pacific Ridge…..which will have profound effects to CA weather.

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs……………………….:-)