We have been posting a powder alert on Fridays now as part of the weather section. Mondays we look at Tahoe, Tuesdays the Northeast, Wednesdays the Rockies, Thursdays the Pacific NW, and Fridays a powder alert. Last Friday there was really no snow to talk about. This week we are talking about New Mexico again. You can see below that the only winter storm warnings out for the country right now are for New Mexico.
With the ridge of high pressure off the Pacific NW coast the past few weeks the storms have been diving down the Rockies without much moisture and then cutting off over the Southwest where they pick up moisture from the southern branch of the jet stream. From there they have then been cutting up to the great lakes. That has kept the majority of the snowfall over the Southwest and then across the Midwest where there are no mountains. What a waste.
This is not a normal La Nina pattern of the jetstream coming directly into the Pacific NW and then across the Northern Rockies. It looks like this will be the last big snow over the Southwest for a while as the pattern turns more towards the typical La Nina pattern as we head into the Winter. This last storm looks like it will drop 6-12 inches over most of the mountains in New Mexico Thursday night and Friday. Here is the snowfall forecast map.
You can see there will also be 1-3 inches over the mountains of the snow starved Northeast. Everyone except for the Southwest is dying for snow as conditions are getting pretty bleak for late December. Things are going to start to change beginning this weekend and into next week for the Pacific NW. Here is the precip map for next week.
That is several feet for the mountains above 5000 ft. in Washington and Oregon. It will continue East into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming where several feet could pile up as well by the next powder alert next Friday. You can see that even Tahoe and Northern Utah could pick up several inches on the Southern edge of the storms.
This is a sight for sore eyes as we have not seen big storms for a while. It’s not the snow you need in Tahoe, Utah, and Colorado, but with time things could shift further South in January. BA