High Sierra Topix

Storms have tracked north of here (Clovis?Fresno) and by the looks of web cams and snow reports, its more rain than snow so far at least at the ski areas . Reports locally are for temps to drop as a another storm tracks through over the weekend. So far I think the 4" at Meadow Lakes must be rain, as the Sugar Bowl cam shows a dusting of new snow overnight, and its pretty close to the Meadow Lakes station I beleive (could be wrong about that), but much less than 2'. I 80 cams show just a dusting as well. While I would love to get out early on some pack trips, we (the State) need more snow pack.

This Thursday evening's NWS forecasts have already begun to back off of the optimistic dump from earlier this week. For the first time read the usual term SPLIT that often is involved when their models don't pan out. Note the way the last three days has played out here in the SF Bay Area is rather different from what was predicted last Sunday or Monday. They did get it right that it would stall over the North SF Bay but much of the timing has been off. On Monday's forecast, todays rain was possibly going to be heavy and it just piddled having come and gone yesterday. Here in the San Jose we have picked up just 0.07 inch this week while just a few miles due west in Ben Lomand in the Santa Cruz Mountains, orographic flows have dropped over 12 inches of precipitation and there has been minor flooding downstream. Lets hope the cold core pool coming down develops a surprise secondary front as it moves south as sometimes happens.

...IT IS INTERESTING
TO NOTE THAT THE 00Z NAM SHOWS A DOWNWARD TREND IN PROJECTED RAIN
TOTALS WITH THIS SYSTEM. THE 00Z NAM IS FORECASTING ONLY HALF AS
MUCH PRECIP AS THE 18Z GFS ACROSS PORTIONS OF OUR FORECAST AREA.
THE SYSTEM IS FORECAST TO SPLIT AS IT APPROACHES THE NORTHERN CA
COAST ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON...WITH THE NORTHERN PART OF THE SPLIT
SHEARING OFF INTO THE PAC NW AND THE SOUTHERN PART DIGGING SE
TOWARDS SOUTHERN CA. THERE IS REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THE SPLITTING
NATURE OF THIS SYSTEM MAY RESULT IN LESS PRECIP THAN THE MODELS
ARE FORECASTING.

It's "snaining" pretty hard here at 6200'....

Slushies from heaven?

Now we're talkin - remote sensors say 35" new snow in last 24 hrs at Ostrander Lake. 14" at Lower Relief Valley in the Emigrant. 2" of water content at Bishop Pass.

62" at the tioga pass entry station.. very nice rebound.. even crowley picked up snow.. I'm guessing the skeeter fest will be back on..

Russ,

62" means about 6" or so of water/ice. Doesn't take long to melt that much ice. While it is a nice start I wouldn't change prediction yet about what summer will bring. Check winter of 84-85, big march after low snow then nothing for remainder of year. I backpacked that year in May above 11,000 ft, going past frozen upper Sphinx lakes over into the Brewer drainage. Extremely shallow snowpack above Sphinx lakes on N. Slope and virtually no snow on south slopes on Brewer side. Also if you subtract October snowfall for this year since it pretty much melted out before next snow you will note that snowfall this winter is pretty comperable to 84-85. Not saying you will be wrong but this storm alone will not change water conditions dramatically come late May, June or July.

Mike

not saying you're wrong, but we need all we can get. this was a good one, given the winter pattern.

Definitely helpful for the water supply (especially as a lot of the heaviest rain earlier in the week was in the Feather river basin), but doesn't look like a game changer. Certainly a far cry from March 1991 (175 inches of snow at Mammoth) - though we might end up with a similar total to that season (242 inches of snow), albeit with a fair amount of our snow falling early this season and then melting out.

Mammoth has received 42 inches so far from this storm (for a total of 60 inches to date in March and 202 inches so far this season). They still have only 60% of the average snowfall for the season and less than a third of last year's total snowfall. Hopefully we can both ski over spring break and then have a great summer for backpacking!

Good totals from the end of the storm generally across southern areas of the state and Sierra that have been so bone dry. Without the rains lower elevations would have remained dry brown with few wildflowers but at least now even if it hardly rains any more there will be a minor burst of short green grasses then wildflowers mainly where water channels by mid April that will come and go. Carrizo Plain had well over an inch, Antelope Valley nearly an inch, east slope areas of the tail of the Southern Sierra nearly an inch, Yosemite Valley 3.5 inches and gauges down the Merced canyon similarly, and Borrego Springs nearly a half inch. Valley foothill areas all the way south from the Delta generally picked up 2 or 3 inches that bodes well for a mid April bloom.

Areas north of the SF Bay Area including the northern Sierra received large multi inch totals mainly before the weekend. Just a few miles east of here Ben Lomand received over 16 inches.