Update- 1 FEB 14 9:40a PST
Back Peddling on Storm: usual High Pressure Ridge-Sheckter
NOAA Shows Weakening Storm For Next Week
Same for Unisys Model-Blocking High
Intellicast 10 Day shows ppt diminishing
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Pineapple Express Dumps on California
Sierra skiing has been bailed out for February and with a little more help from Hawaii or even Alaska the season can get better.By now you heard of the massive rain and flooding in NorCal and Marin Co. Over 3 feet of snow fell in Tahoe area and even more on the summit.Kirkwood got 5 feet of snow! Stay tuned at Tahoe Loco for next storm. However there is now a warming trend and the “atmospheric river” has shifted further North. We will update on Thursday as the high pressure ridge may be getting busted allowing Gulf of Alasks storms in.
The Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort also got blasted by this storm with 3-5 feet of fresh but heavy snow bringing season total up to 92 in. February has been a surprisingly good month and will delight families on school holiday for skiing this weekend.Last season had weak Feb and March snowfall so if this trend continues we can recover in a big way. We skied last Friday and Saturday in heavy snowfall and Saturday was among the better powder days this year at Mammoth especially in tree areas off Chair 5. We were also impressed by the grooming and snowmaking which made the mountain much more skiable given the low snowfall this year.
Looking ahead to next week both TahoeLoco and Howard Sheckter see strong storm potential and we will update on the weekend. Watch the breakdown of the high pressure ridge on Unisys to see if the Gulf of Alaska storm can break through.