These pictures are all from Monday after it finally got cold Sunday night. In town the last storm ended in rain and there is no snow on the ground. But on Monday when I drove up to the pass I was shocked to find 2-3 inches of very dry powder at the parking lot. Even a couple hundred yards towards town there was only 1/4 inch or so. It was a very sharp line between snow and no snow. In the photo below you can see it clearly - on the right (west side) you can see that there is snow all the way down to sea level while on the left (towards town) there is no snow below about a 1000 feet.
This is ocean effect snow. When it got cold the west wind carried moisture off of the water and dropped it when it got to land. It is sort of the opposite of what happened earlier in the weekend when Pyramid was in the rain shadow . Then the warm weather was out of the east and it dropped rain when it got to land and the west side was in the shadow. Monday morning the west wind was dropping snow when it got to shore and the East side was in the precipitation shadow.
The new snow was super light and fluffy. Stomp a ski and all the snow blew away. It really did not provide any base at all. When I skied high up on the mountain (where there was still a base of snow) It was like there was no new snow at all on top of the old snow. And by yesterday when I went up all the new snow had blown away, and even down low the 2-3 inches had sublimated down to practically nothing.
Right now the temperature is in the low teens and the wind is out of the north and west. I'm hoping the north end of the island gets some more ocean effect snow!
Patrick
 |
| Snow on the right (west side) and no new snow on left (east side) |
 |
| iPad Panorama |
 |
| Camera Panorama |
No comments:
Post a Comment