Wednesday February 16th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

3:30pm

51ºF today.

Overnight

There is not much hope of riding this weekend unless something changes significantly. The late week storm does not look promising.

The melting has been bad. As the snow on the top of the trails melts, the irt part of the snirt concentrates on the top of the trail and is making them an ugly brown.

A testament to the club’s grooming efforts, a lot of the base is still there. The freeze thaw cycle has made it icy and what does survive will be quite durable. A cold day or two and 6″+ of snow would put us back into action.

As I mentioned, that probably won’t happen for the weekend. The late week storm is shown going north of us, leaving us in the precipitation-weak southwest quadrant of the storm.

Between now and then the forecast is not pretty. There are a variety of opinions on details, but let’s settle for mid-40s or worse. There is a little rain added in as the weekend gets closer.

When I was having discussions on the various models I spent a lot of time on the 850mb temperature lines. Usually -4C is about the rain snow line. In this case I am watching the +10C line. The GFS has it close to us today and Thursday before retreating, the NAM is showing it well north of us for Friday.

Usually I equate the +10C line at this time of year with the 50 degree mark. There is really a lot that plays into that like mixing between the layers of the atmosphere, cooling from the snow pack, and how much sun we see that day. Bottom line- it isn’t good to see that +10C line in the neighborhood.

(Got anything else to brighten up their morning with there Chuckles?)

Yep. The driveway is treacherous. Either it is ice with melt water on it or mud. Be careful.

So is there any hope or is it time to get out the YouTube video of the fat lady?

I don’t think that we are done. It depends on how much of the base gets eaten in the next few days.

Right now I am watching a storm coming for Sunday through Tuesday. If it plays out as shown on the GFS it would be light snow Sunday and Monday until the main event arrives. If it works out that storm could easily bring 9-12″.

The catch is that there is also a late week warm day and storm possible next week. That one is close but on the wrong side of the rain snow line. At a week out plus, I am not going to panic about 200 miles on a rain/snow line.

We have seen a pattern change and we are headed for a much more active weather pattern. The storm path was heading way down south, and now it is more east to west. I use the analogy of a rope being stretched between two people and one of them sending waves down it. As it moves up and down hopefully it will line up right to give us a storm or ideally, about six of  ’em.

When I was out and about yesterday I was surprised at how well the trails were holding up. Yes there are a lot of ugly spots with mud and puddles, and the brown top isn’t pretty, but there was still a lot of base left.

Probably the worst that I saw was the grade along 32. It was just starting to break through on the sunny spot between Lakewood and the bridge just north of there. Townsend had a few spots just north of town that were bare and a lot of puddles. The golf course in Lakewood still had coverage even on the hill, with only one bare spot apparent. Closer to home the trails were also still mostly covered, though pretty brown with snirt tailings.

The Iron Snowshoe closed their trails south of C. Other area clubs are open but in poor condition and most recommend against riding.

Here are events for this weekend..

For now the glass is still half full.

Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB