Squeeze Play Coming

Short term things are looking pretty good. This storm should dump about 6-12 inches of fresh snow on Slide Mountain. My friends over at Unofficial Mt. Rose have reported that the snow guns are working over time and with the cold weather, they should be very productive. Things are getting close at Mt. Rose. We have another weaker storm coming in for next Thursday and Friday. This storm is actually going to travel down the coast, go right past us and then make an abrupt 180 degree turn, come back north and head toward our area. Or so the models are forecasting. We should get something out of that storm. Long term, things look really good ... read on.

Ok, I have to admit that I made this one up but I kind of like it, so I will stick with it. First let me define the squeeze play. High Pressure over Hudson Bay blocks storms and sends them down the west coast. Meanwhile High pressure moves west into the Pacific ocean. This creates an alley for storms to move down the west coast, squeezing between the two blocking air masses. I call that the squeeze play and when the conditions take over, we get snow and lots of it.

I report what the long term weather models are forecasting. When the two biggies agree (EC and GFS), I report with much greater confidence. Last post I reported about an anomaly that the EC weather model was picking up on. That anomaly is indeed the squeeze play. Remember from last post that I talked about 10-20 inches of liquid precip coming to all of Tahoe by months end, at least according to the EC long range forecaster. I report, you decide. Here is the setup for around the 18th of November:


Notice the alley where the storms are going to get squeezed into. This picture is compliments of the GFS weather model. Remember the EC weather model picked up on this a few days ago. So now the models are converging on a weather pattern that is still a couple of weeks away. Remember, a couple of weeks is a long time. This machine we live on/in is very complex so things can change. For for now it looks like the week of Thanksgiving is going to usher in a series of large, wet storms that should blanket all the resorts around Tahoe with a significant amount of snow. Here is a forecast for 11/18 by GFS:



Get your hopes up for sure. Keep your snow dance going, but remember if our squeeze alley breaks down things can change in a hurry.

Stay Tuned ...