March 25th, 2025
Are you ready for this?
It’s snowing! and there’s no wind!!
When’s the last time that happened?
Oh, that’s right, it happened a bunch of times during mid-week over the winter.
Mid week skiing is good if you can get it!
It’s certainly not the most prodigious Jay Cloud we’ve ever had.
But it’s doing the job. A little bit of snow every day this week so far. And it keeps on keeping on into the weekend.
Did you hear it’s close to 100° in Phoenix Arizona? At the same time near Hudson Bay Canada it’s -25°!
That sounds like trouble to me.
That kind of thermal gradient is rather extraordinary. Forecasters have a huge challenge ahead, as that warmer air tries to come back to the northeast at the same time, the colder air in Canada comes our way to put up a fight.
That’s our forecast problem this weekend.
But before then. There’s not really any problem. We are snowing on and off thanks to upper level low pressure, a little bit of surface convergence, some upslope, and a very unstable atmosphere. That means it’s much colder up in the sky than it is down at the base of the mountain. This all combined keeps the Jay cloud snowing more often than not right into the weekend.
There’s been some pretty significant change to the forecasted weather pattern. We were hoping for a few days ago, as I told you I was going with the American model because the euro model was looking different (too warm) than I was feeling. Well, hats off to the euro model. Because the American model has capitulated. And it’s now trying to bring a warmer solution by late in the weekend.
And the problems start in the short range.
That Arctic front we were hoping would have a wave of low pressure here for our Thursday and Friday ~ now looks like that wave of low pressure is tracking so far north that we just get a little bit more snow instead of a lot of snow, in the short range.
My hopes of a big powder day on Friday are diminished, but not completely gone.
We already hear reports of some pretty good, elevation and aspect dependent, powder.
So if we poke around, we probably can find some stash and some of the glades too.
It’s been snowing much of the day today with quite a difference in elevation.
On top of the mountain a few more inches, while at the bottom of the mountain it’s almost drippy.
But it’s getting colder before it gets warmer and we have another front coming in.
It gets a little bit more breezy though as some colder air pushes in from the northwest with flurries and breaks most of Wednesday sun.
High temperature near freezing. Snow should pick up again before nightfall with maybe another 5 inches of snow by Thursday lunchtime.
High temperature again near 32° with negligible wind, mostly from the west 15-20 mph.
A little more potent front is due Thursday night and Friday morning. That should give us another 4 or 5 inches of snow, so it still has a chance of being a powder day Friday, with the temperature more in the 20s. And it wouldn’t be Friday without a little wind, it’s coming out of the northwest more like 20 to 30 mph.
So we can keep the hope alive of a powder day Friday.
And the more we look at, we may stay on the colder side of the front at least to start the weekend.
So Saturday also has potential to be a powder day. And the stakes are pretty high. There’s a wave of low pressure coming along, and we’re still in the cold side of the front and there’s a chance we still get double digit snowfall Friday night into Saturday morning.
I think last Friday I said something like possible 20 inches altogether during the week. And it’s still not out of the question, but it’s a low confidence forecast.
I certainly wouldn’t cancel any plans to ski up here. You really gotta keep your eye on the ball though with this forecast changing so fast.
But cautious optimism says we are getting some powder skiing back here through Saturday.
And the more we look at it also, it looks like the cold air will be hesitant to release on Sunday as well.
It is so dramatic with that record warm coming to the east coast to our south. But high pressure in southeastern Canada is going to be offering cold resistance. And that means just about any kind of precipitation is likely here Sunday into Monday. We may end up with some freezing rain, there’s a slight chance it stays all snow. And there’s also the chance that it gets quite wet here, Sunday night into Monday. That part of our forecast is quite impossible.
And that gets us to April Fools' Tuesday. Colder air is will try and come back, maybe even quite cold Tuesday into Wednesday.
That’s a really tough call for next week, but we are grateful that the patterns shifted just in time to save our March.
My brain feels a little bit like scrambled eggs right now. Trying to figure this all out. It certainly is an extreme proposition with record heat coming out of the southwestern United States and all that cold bottled up in Canada. It’s never boring! And it’s not often easy either.
What fun would that be anyway if it was easy?
Can’t wait to see what I have to say when I do the next write up on Friday.
Talk to you then.
-TK
