I feel like I owe everyone an apology. I let FIVE days go by without forecasting. For what it's worth, I've been exhausted. No excuse, I know, now that a few of you have kicked down and paid me to do my job here.
We're having more weather problems, at least for skiers and snowboarders and telemarkers. An upper level low sits off the California coast and another weak low is chilling near the Washington coast. In between (that's us) is a weak ridge of high pressure. That's great if you like sunshine and above-average temperatures, but that's not so great if you love powder skiing. I love both, and can't decide which I prefer. As an employee of Meadows, I love powder (meaning rain at populated elevations), but as a human being, desperately seeking vitamin D, I love sunshine. Um... Meadows employees are human beings too... that came out badly, but I think it's funny so I'll leave it!
We're getting sunshine for the next couple of days. After that, we need to pray for falling temperatures to go with approaching precipitation predicted for Sunday onward.
Honestly, I'm not giving much credence to the long-range forecast. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all, and it's hard to predict very far out. Chaos theory explains a lot of this... small variations in the inputs for climatological models lead to large differences down the line, especially here, where there aren't zillions of inputs (thanks, Stu... =)). There's something quite appealing about chaos...
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. In the windsurfing and kiteboarding scene, we're looking at a mild east wind event this week. Thursday morning sees a very early upper twenties burst, followed by 22-26 for the rest of the morning, as the upper level low rotates off the coast. Friday looks similar. With overnight lows in the thirties and daytime highs near 50 (with sunshine!), this should be decent windsurfing and kiting conditions, if you can stand the sub-40 degree water.
I'll be on the mountain. Speaking of, if you're a telemark skier and missed the clinic last Sunday, you missed out on both some excellent instruction and some excellent brownies.
Print | posted @ Tuesday, February 17, 2009 7:19 PM