Winter weather to make brief return to area
Another winter storm bears down on the Eastern Sierra for Easter weekend
The Eastern Sierra will get a brief break in the weather today, Thursday as an upper low continues its descent offshore of the
West Coast but the next wave of storms is bearing down on the region, with snow and rain expected to blanket both ends of the Easter weekend. According to the National Weather Service’s Reno office, the next set of storms, while not bringing feet of snow, will be persistent and windy and cold, characterized by periods of valley rain and mountain snow through the weekend.
It might, however, not be as windy as past storms.
“At least winds appear to remain lower compared to the previous few
Days,” forecasters said. “Snow probabilities greater than 6” for the weekend range from 20-60 percent for Mono Co with areas along
U.S. Highway 395 around 10 percent or less. By Sunday, we should only be dealing with the wraparound moisture of the low as it moves east over the Desert Southwest.
Mike Korotkin is the forecaster for OpenSnow for Mammoth. He got into the details more: “We have a much bigger and more powerful storm on the heels of the Wednesday (Thursday morning) night system,” he said. “The storm has the high potential to double the snowfall amounts we received for Wednesday night. This storm is a slow-moving low-pressure system that will draw moisture in off the Pacific and rotate waves of moisture into the Sierra; a classic setup that yields good snowfall potential along with multiple days of snowy weather. The track of the low pressure is obviously critical to the forecast so if it wobbles too far South or North we’re stuck with lesser amounts. The other aspect is that it has a much colder core so the initial snow levels will be lower than for the Wednesday night system. Snow levels should be under 5,000 feet elevation for most of the system and may dip a touch above that Saturday morning before coming down again Saturday night below 5,000,” he said. “Snow ratios should be 11 to 14:1 at Main Lodge and higher up top.
“Right now, I’m seeing good model agreement between the American and European models,” he said. “They both indicate about 1.20 to 1.40 inches of liquid for our region by Sunday morning. That yields about 12 to 16 inches of snow for Main Lodge by Sunday morning. The summit could see closer to 18 - 20 inches on the high end if all this pans out. I’ll update this forecast throughout the week.
“We will see snow showers on Sunday as the storm is exiting... it’s likely we dry out by the first of April and that should continue at least for a couple of days,” he said.
According to the NWS, things could once again get active by April 4. “Then, early next week it appears that we will get a reprieve from the active weather as an upper ridge develops in the Eastern Pacific and moves onshore next Monday.,” the NWS said. “Therefore, expect drier and warmer conditions as the ridge moves into the Intermountain West. There is only one hiccup, and it is associated to the retreating low as it moves east over Arizona that could result in gusty winds for the Eastern Sierra. Otherwise, conditions should improve across the region.”