The Skiing Weatherman March 24, 2023

First of all, please accept my apologies for missing the last edition.  After attending a hectic three day trade show near my home here in Rhode Island, I rushed home and packed my bags for a flight to the Netherlands, where my wife and I met our first grandchild…a memorable event that I will never forget.  I simply had a brain cramp and forgot to submit an article.  Hopefully you didn’t miss it because you were out enjoying the fresh snow that FINALLY made its way to the Northeast early this month!

The weather pattern has unfolded pretty much the way I anticipated, although the cold air that has supported some healthy March snow amounts did not reach as far south as I thought it might.  Most of the substantial snow has fallen north of Interstate 80 and although the past few days have been mild and wet at times all the way up to the Canadian border, the pattern is about to cool down again and I believe that there will be at least a few more meaningful snowfalls across the Northeast before the curtain comes down on this season.  This weekend a relatively weak storm will move across New England with only a marginal amount of cold air with which to work, so we are looking at another elevation event that will bring mixed precip types to the Adirondacks and the mountains of northern New England and southern Quebec. The resorts north of U.S. Route 4 have the best shot at picking up a moderate amount of snow…along with some other “stuff”…but this will not be a blockbuster storm.

Here’s why I believe that the weather pattern still has legs in terms of cold and snow.  If you look at this jet stream forecast for April Fools Day…

You will see an orange area over Greenland.  That is an upper level ridge, and it has hardly moved for about 3 weeks.  That blocking ridge was a product of the sudden stratospheric warming episode that I wrote about last month.  By remaining in essentially the same place, it has acted as a block against upper level troughs (the blue circulation off to its southwest) from zipping out to sea.  Instead, the troughs have been forced underneath the ridge, and many of them have moved through the Northeast this month, supporting surface lows as they spun through the region.  The troughs also break off a chunk of cold air from the high latitudes and deliver it to the lower 48.  Here’s a look at the temperature anomalies at about 5,000 feet for the same time step of the jet stream map…

Temperatures about a mile above the surface are a very dependable proxy for forecasting surface temperatures, and the dark blue on this map suggests that air that is cold enough to limit melting and potentially support late season snow will be present as we head into next month.  If we fast forward to April 5^th, we see that it looks as though those deviations from normal will only deepen…

Now, the colder air that we can reasonably expect around April 5th will be offset to an extent by the rises in normal temps that will be occurring over the next few weeks…normal highs and lows are rising 2 to 3 degrees per week in the Northeast right now.  That shot of cold will help sustain some very nice skiing and riding right through Easter weekend by the looks.

So, from where I am sitting, I remain very bullish on the prospects for winter sports for at least the next few weeks…if your timing is right, you could even sneak in a powder day or two…enjoy!!!