Exciting next 48 hours queued up for any of we storm watchers. This morning have already brought up about a dozen different weather sites I usually bounce through quickly most storm mornings.
KW reporting 8 inches overnight while temps were a constant 29F 14" over 24 hours that is actually totaling both storm #1 and #2. Nearby CDEC Caples Lake 8000' CAP site shows 1.2 inches liquid and Schneiders SCN 8750' shows 1.3 inches liquid.
Of those reporting early SQ much more at 29", SB 13", NS 23", HV 7", SaT 18".
Looking at the GOES-West 16k water vapor Satellite loop, shows a large detached secondary plume of moisture behind the storm #3 front that the jetstream will pile drive in. Although some are referring to that as an Atmospheric River aka AR, it is not the usual AR Pineapple Express type moisture plume as it is more middle latitude and not stretching down to sub-tropical latitudes near Hawaii that the latter are associated with. Of course that is great for we skiers because when a PE storm occurs. snow levels often go up well above 9k while in this storm will top out about 7k later this afternoon. Thus lower elevations Sierra Cement while elevations above 7.5k a huge dump. Mammoth will get a mammoth dump.
The wunderground Hourly site for South Lake Tahoe at 6361' shows 33F now and upper 30Fs temps during the day with little precipitation between late morning and mid afternoon. Between now and mid morning CALTRANS should clean up all the highways to R1/R2 conditions so that mid day window is when any considering getting up east of the crest ought do so. I had been planning to do so into South Lake Tahoe late morning but probably won't now because an old medical issue has been bothering me and instead may drive up to Dodge Ridge Friday dawn thus avoiding the certain zoo on 80/50/88. I had not expected to ski Thursday in any case and instead just do some snow photography about lake level however snow at lake level will be Sierra Cement that does not tend to be that aesthetic and I hate working in cold sleet. Most resorts will either shut down or have so little open skiing at just cement elevations that it won't be worth all the hassles. I will readily storm ski when winds are light to moderate and snow cold dry fluff.
An interesting thing I've noticed looking at resorts like Kirkwood and Heavenly that have webcams on snow platters is they tend to record a lower amount of snow than actually fell and suspect that is why resorts no longer officially use them. The time lapse images readily shows wind blowing snow off during storm lulls while it is not snowing. The reason is the platters with the measuring stick in inches at center plate are up a few feet above snow on the ground lest large new storms bury them. But what happens is a fair amount of snow on the platters gets blown off while not much from blowing snow closer to the surface adds onto a platter. Sort of same reason the tops of boulders are bare that are sticking out of snow. Hey you resort guys, a better structure would have a fence circling such platters at say a 4 foot distance maybe 3 feet higher than platters and a narrow window for the camcorder view. On the KW webcam all season has been a boulder frame right that had been sticking out of the snow and it is now finally barely noticeable as a small bump soon to be hugely buried.
