Surface, GFS-Euro 24/Hr Snow, Euro-GFS Ensemble Total Snow thru March 6 (click/animate) Ultra Long-Range Forecast from the Euro Ensemble Extended Steamboat, Wolf Creek, Alta, Truckee Forecast Utah Thru Thursday Eve Scattered snow showers in Utah today as the storm moves out. Tomorrow we will have a…
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So I finally went ahead and bought a subscription – I’d love to be able to predict my skiing this far out, and I’m trying to make good use of your data, but (as I’ve mentioned in some of the comments in Seth’s Weather FB group) I find a lot of this hard to make actionable. This “trifecta storm” has provided some all-time skiing at Loveland and the Jane and I desperately want to catch the next one.
I’m trying to block some dates on my calendar for skiing the rest of this season, particularly in CO but I can get to Jackson, Utah, or Mammoth.
Couple questions:
1) What is going on with the dates in bold and then parentheses, e.g. “Feb 20-21 (Apr 1-2)” what do you mean by that? It’s not clear
2) Have you updates the predictions sheet in accordance with this blog post? I’m only seeing the predictions sheet as far out as March, but this post has dates out to May?
3) When is the next Trifecta going to hit Colorado? Looks like 2nd half of March?
I like that blue bar chart with the dates, seems like that gives some qualitative detail about how big the storms might be, but it’s harder to understand when those might come in, whereas the ‘predictions’ spreadsheet just has dates on it, and the spreadsheet screenshotted here only covers Tahoe
Thanks for joining! We are nearly a thousand members strong, so you are in good company. Ok let’s dive in.
By now, we know all of the possible storms that can hit because we have seen the pattern cycle through 4 times since October. Every year, a new pattern sets up in late summer and gets established by October. That pattern repeats until the following summer, with seasonal differences.
Based on what I see at the time, I release predictions as part of an “on record” segment to show transparency and for members like you, who want to plan trips in advance. Usually the predictions are around 85-90% accurate beyond typical model range (over 14 days). Early in the season, I don’t have good grasp on which storms will be good vs weak systems, but over the cycles you begin to see clearer. It takes a couple of cycles for the LRC model (the graph you mention), to have enough data to predict storms. This tool is how we knew that the storm we call the Trifecta, was going to come together. The first one since Feb 2020.
Finally, the forecast thru May. We are going to release the final set of predictions that will be based on our forecast that we just posted. Currently, the last prediction is March 22–30 days out. The Trifecta storm returns between March 26-28th.