Who's Got the Goods 12_30_06

OK, sorry about the lack of posts in the last few weeks. Work merger stuff blah, blah, blah... Not really an excuse but that's the only thing I can use.

Interesting picture of the snowpack this week. The PNW continues to out pace all other areas, including the headline grabbing Colorado areas, that really didn't benefit from the tow upslope events in the last few weeks as much as the media would like us to believe. Tahoe has had some improvement, but still lags the entire West. Utah, ID, MT & WY are anywhere from average to slightly below average. CO is actually quite good.

East Face 12.16.06

What's in Store? 12/06/06

Why look at all models and try to understand them yourself? I will do it for you:

Short Term (high level of accuracy but goes out only 3 days) - Very quite in the West. Temps moderating and inversions rule the forecast.

Mid Term (Moderate level of accuracy, but subject to storm timing and strength inaccuracies; goes out 7 - 10 days) - Storminess returns to the West around Sunday, but the 1st short waves are weak and will get shreaded by the high pressure ridge currently overhead. Good news is that the 1st storms will push the ridge east (sorry ECers), and open the door for more potent storms in the next week.

Long Term (Low level of accuracy, subject to outright misses; goes out 14 day or longer) - Storminess continues all the way through the 14 day forecast. Use a grain of salt with this prognosis, as the long range is poping all over the place.

Who's Got the Goods 12/04/06

Pretty quite second half of the week. Mostly settling & consolidation. This week will be quiet too, as a high pressure sits of the West, so don't expect much in the way of increasing snow packs. PNW still leads the way, with Central Rockies second and Tahoe in the rear. Cold conditions throughout have kept snow quality excellent (what's there).

PCMR 12_02_06

Pretty dang good for lift skiing. Found some freshies on the unbeaten paths. Cold, though w/ temps in the teens.

PCMR 11.02.06

PCMR 12_02_06

What's in Store?

From CDC NOAA:

Week 1 (26 November -2 December 2006): GSDM Stage 1 with subtropical jets is most probable. This situation generally favors an active weather regime for the Rockies and Plains, with a southwest-northeast storm track across the central USA. An important issue is how soon deep tropical moisture transport through the Gulf of Mexico can resume after the recent surges of cool dry air. Latest observations suggest low level moistening is occurring across the Gulf of Mexico. Most models predict baroclinic development on the Plains by around the middle of next week, but with still serious phase and amplitude issues. They are "catching-up" to the changing tropical convective forcing and other processes. A thought to offer would be a slower and more amplified solution for trough development, and the models are now trending there. In any case, bitterly cold Arctic air is likely to penetrate into the Rockies and Plains by the end of this period while the Deep South warms up in advance. Depending on the details, portions of the Rockies and Plains may have severe winter weather conditions while severe local storms become a concern for the locations such as the south central states to the Ohio Valley.There is still an on-going tropical cyclone risk across the central Pacific and possibly other regions (see the Tropical Prediction Center for links). Satellite pictures show evidence of development trying to occur west-northwest of the equatorial date line. Locations such as the Philippines may be impacted later this period. Tropical cyclone Yani is weakening in the area of the South Pacific islands; however, more development may follow. Finally, locations across the Indian Ocean may become at risk for tropical cyclone development as the MJO slowly moves east.
Week 2 (3-9 December 2006): Same as week 1, but with the usual synoptic variations in amplitude. Perhaps another episode of baroclinic development across the Rockies and Plains may occur toward the end of this period. The week 1 storm system will not be the "last western/central USA" trough in this series. In fact, the stronger and slower moving troughs may not occur until the last half of December, particularly if a transition from GSDM Stage 1-2 occurs.
Week 3 (10-16 December 2006): We may have a period during weeks 4-6 of extremely cold air covering particularly the central USA should a mature GSDM Stage 2 evolve. That may allow a snow pack to build across locations such as the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes. Given the magnitude of our warm ENSO (and other factors) I would be surprised not to see an anomalously strong combined jet ~30-35N extend from East Asia into the western USA (with split flow across North America) by ~ the middle of January 2007, which would be GSDM Stage 3. This would significantly increase the probability of high impact weather (heavy precipitation, high winds, etc.) for the USA west coast perhaps affecting California the most (other regions for hazards and weather understood).