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[John Frieh]

Still speculation at this point but I hope you wanksters get off yer es and climb something:

 

Introduction

 

Here are some sad facts for skiers as almost all of the regions listed have a snowpack at under 55%.

 

The precipitation is close to normal, but the problem has been that we have had two major precipitation events and each had between 3 to 4 inches of water equivalent and each had freezing levels above 9000 feet.

 

So instead of some 60 inches+ of new snow (cumulative for the 2 events) we had rain and some of the snowpack swept away. As has been said timing is indeed everything.

 

7 Day Forecast

 

The next several days will bring some light prec. to the region.Then a strong ridge of high pressure will build later this week for a mostly dry pattern. The longer term forecasts get tricky but with an El Nino pattern (above average sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific region) continuing it looks bad for snow. This El Nino pattern in the past has led to below average snowpack for the Northwest especially in January and February.

 

Snow Above Average

 

The Southwest tends to do well for snow in an El Nino pattern and this season is no exception. Most places in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico have been running above average in snowpack.

 

From http://www.wowweather.com/

 

PS: HWY 20 is closed for the winter.

PPS: First day of winter is Dec 21st