Feb. 25 Update No Snow for 8-10 Days
Drought article: Thin Snowpack Signals Summer of Fire and Drought – NYTimes.com
Snow on the Way -Maybe 12-18 in (Only 8 in.)
Storm track variable with ppt levels down a tad. Tuesday still looks good in the Sierras then storm moves South
and East with blizzard conditions in Upper Midwest. After this week however blocking high pressure returns.
After an epic start for skiing in December the West has entered a dry period with little snow in January/Early Feb. However the season has been saved because of a big base depth that was accumulated in December at Alta, Kirkwood,Mammoth,and most NorthWest resorts like Mt Bachelor and Snowqualmie. Alta UT did better than the Sierras with 67 in. of snow in January 16 in in. February bringing the season snow up to 277 in. Mammoth has a season total of 255 in. but only 26 in. in January. The base depth at Mammoth is 180 in.
Bridger Bowl MT. despite a base of only 52 in. has had more reliable snow due to its legendary Bridger Cloud
that delivers light powder snow despite variable weather conditions in Bozeman area. See Bridger Bowl video from Sunday here,
Looking ahead NOAA is forecasting dry weather and colder than normal temperatures for the West over the next 14 days. Even the Northwest is forecasted for less ppt than normal. Want to know why? Spend 2 hrs reading this ENSO neutral analysis.
This is not to say there will be no snow in the Sierras as Accuweather once again has forecasted rain in San Francisco for the week of Feb 17th but they have been wrong before. San Francisco has one of the driest Januarys on record. Howard Sheckter of Mammoth Weather is also optimistic about some PPT next week but that is a long way off.
The Unisys Weather site also shows some breakdown of the blocking High pressure and a Low bringing in moisture from the Pacific with some unsettled weather 10 days out. This pattern bodes well for Utah .
Summary: Skiing looks best for mid next week– update in 3 days–Feb 16.