Not quite, but this is the first sign of what’s to come. Photo: Johannes Waibel/Unsplash
Early season storms can be fickle things. While temperatures and weather patterns are beginning to shift, they’re still mostly moderate. That makes things interesting as the Western U.S. gears up for a storm that’s expected to bring its first substantial bit of snow to higher elevations in places like California, Colorado, and Utah. Just how much falls over the weekend will vary from place to place, but in parts of the Sierra Mountains, resorts at higher elevations may expect to see as much as “a foot or more” in the coming days.
Of course, we’ve seen snow start to fall recently but enough to start tracking accumulation is different news altogether. Mammoth Mountain just shut down its lifts on the 2022-2023 season less than two months ago and there’s certainly still snow lingering. But its 8,000-foot base elevation puts it near the range where a fresh layer is forecast anywhere from a few inches to a foot or more. The folks at Snowbrains wrote:
“Most of the accumulation will be in the central and southern Sierra due to the elevation boost compared to the Tahoe region; snow levels will hang around 8,500 feet (plus or minus a few hundred feet) for most of the precipitation period,” they said. “In terms of totals, I see fairly widespread 3-6 inch totals above 8,500 feet, with higher elevations in the central and southern Sierra receiving a foot or more.”
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service in Reno predicts there’s a 25 percent chance of more than four inches in Mono County. The weather service is also forecasting “heavy bands of snow at times” on Saturday, bringing four to six inches at Sonora Pass and as much as four inches to Tioga Pass.
This weekend should see the most significant storm yet of this early season — a fitting way to bridge September and October and continue the countdown into (potentially) another big winter on the West Coast.
