Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Snow storms in the wrong place

Alaska town tries to dig out from huge snow dump
From Yahoo News

Thoughts going out to all the people up there.

Still doing my snow dances.

it's not just CA getting the short end of the snowfall - here in the midwest we are setting temp records almost every day. I've ridden my bicycle to work every day I had time to do it, and that's something I usually only can do 8 months out of the year, even with really warm clothing, since they don't plow all the bike trails I need to take. But no snow.

Season passes for the local ski hill are a drag - their snow making has been fighting the temps, melt for several days, then maybe two nights well below freezing to fix the base, and then it's warm again and you ski in slush on top of ice.

I am starting to rethink my plans for the seasons - maybe I should just drop my April ski tour plan and come out west now to do a Muir Trail under unique conditions. I'll have to make up my mind over the next two days I guess, but I'm 50-50 on the idea.

I know it's probably a once in a lifetime situation right now, but I also know my luck with these things: the moment I get out there the weather pattern will probably shift immediately. So all you snow dancers really just need to convince me to go and try for that January JMT hike and the snow will probably come in hard. It did last March when I wanted to ski, and ended up on the peaks of Death Valley instead to avoid the extreme avalanche hazard in the Sierra

An interesting side note to all this is that there is a huge mass of really cold air up in Canada right now (-40s and -50s F.). It's not the first cold air mass this season, but it is the coldest one so far (not unexpected, since it's early January). However, I've been watching each of these cold air masses as they cross Canada from west to east, and none of them are really bulging down into the USA. It's almost like they stop at the border and keep moving east. This is due to a significant blocking high pressure out in the Atlantic that extends into the US that continues to keep all this cold air at bay. By now, in a normal year, we would have had one or two significant cold snaps, often near or below zero, out here in Ohio.

As for our snow out here, we have had a dusting and a half-inch snow event so far this season, both of which melted pretty quickly. That is unusual for this time of year. Normally it snows anytime starting the beginning of December or later, and then, with each ensuing snowstorm, the snow on the ground doesn't really melt until spring (or briefly for a January thaw, only to do it all over again a week or two later, and *then* melt in spring).

For a great map of the current snow depth in the U.S., click here.

CaT

In addition to the Altantic influence CaT mentions, the northern route of the jet stream seems to be locking in the cold weather in a polar loop around the great white north. The usual cold fronts just aren't able to drop south this winter.

Our lack of snow here in CA correlates pretty well with the La Nina condition we're experiencing (cooler water in the southern Pacific), which is the opposite of El Nino (above average water temp in the Southern Pacific). The oscillation back and forth between these two conditions is associated with well known weather patterns, but they are just trends. Last winter was also a La Nino signal and we had tons of snow.

Once these oceanic/atmospheric oscillations get established at an extreme end of the cycle, they tend to set up seasonal conditions and things don't change much for weeks or months.

The current La Nina is expected to remain until March-May, albeit a weak to moderate signal. Hopefully, the current equilibrium will break down and we'll get into a snow pattern. There's plenty of time to catch up if it gets started soon. Nothing on the horizon yet though.

Link to NOAA El Nino/La Nino Cycle

Thanks for posting that map. Looks like the Pacific NW, and up into BC area, are getting big dumps.

Precip finally on the way next week! - but looks like a mix of rain and snow.

SacBee did a good piece describing La Nina and the Arctic oscillation, for those interested in this stuff.

Dry January

Was just looking at the California Snow Survey page.

The top item under "Announcements" reads as follows:


So it looks like they will be doing the second manual snow survey today, which when combined with the electronic readings, will produce a second set of water content percentages that may or may not differ from the 38%/23% estimate mentioned in the above quote.

Here is the post (also under "Announcements") from the January 3 snow survey:


CaT

February results are very similar to January. Snowpack is 37% of average and 23% of April 1 average. Not looking good, but some precip on the horizon mid-Feb.

Classic La Nina pattern continues with the storm track going mostly to the north of CA.