Waiting

No joy in Mudville tonight. My Giants lost 4-2 in Texas. Now I'm waiting for Sunday's Game 4...

I got out of Truckee about 11AM Saturday morning...wet and gray, the mountains were socked in and drizzle was the flavor of the day. I wanted to go by Donner Lake and lookie-loo the autumn colors...maybe snap a photo or two...Sorry Charlie, low hanging clouds obscured all my eye candy, and I never even pulled over for a closer look.

I mailed my absentee ballot at the Soda Springs Post Office and decided against heading east on I-80 for a reconnaissance lap by Boreal...the clouds were on the deck up top, and pulling over for a Photo Op in poor visibility seemed like a fool's errand...or ironic epitaph, so I turned west and chased the rain bands down the mountain.

The rain let up for the most part in Sacramento, with just a cloudburst outside Vacaville.

I fired up the laptop about five minutes before Game 3's first pitch...my tour of the webcams and PWS's showed no change on Donner Summit. I thought the remote weather stations were broken because the temps were the same as when I last looked 7-8 hours earlier.

On closer inspection, the MESOWEST station at Sugar Bowl had stopped updating Friday. All the other PWS's were online, and the temps were still hanging right around 39°F

After the game, I looked to Reno's AFD for some insights. They noted the clouds Banked up against the Western Slope:

UPSTREAM SHORTWAVE WILL APPROACH TONIGHT AND MAINLY BRING AN
INCREASE IN MID TO HIGH LEVEL CLOUDINESS. KEPT A SMALL CHANCE OF
RAIN MAINLY NORTH OF I-80 WITH THE BEST CHANCES IN THE HIGHER
TERRAIN OF WESTERN LASSEN...PLUMAS AND SIERRA COUNTIES. A FEW
LOCATIONS COULD PICK UP A TENTH OF AN INCH IN THESE AREAS. AMOUNTS
WILL GENERALLY BE A TRACE TO A FEW HUNDREDTHS ELSEWHERE. WARM
ADVECTION ALOFT WILL KEEP CLOUDS ESPECIALLY NORTHERN AREAS THROUGH
SUNDAY BEFORE HEIGHTS BEGIN TO RISE EARLY NEXT WEEK UNDER
ANTICIPATED RIDGE PATTERN. KEPT A SLIGHT CHANCE OF RAIN FAR
NORTHERN AREAS SUNDAY MORNING. OTHERWISE A DECREASING CLOUD TREND
GOING INTO MONDAY. TEMPERATURES WILL BE SEASONALLY COOL SUNDAY
WITH A WARMING TREND MONDAY-TUESDAY. HOHMANN

.LONG TERM...WEDNESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY...
STRONG RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE DOMINATES MUCH OF THE WEST THROUGH
THE LONG TERM PERIOD. THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR A SYSTEM TO MOVE IN
NEXT WEEKEND OR POSSIBLY EARLY THE FOLLOWING WEEK...BUT WITH
SIGNIFICANT MODEL DIFFERENCES CONFIDENCE IS LOW AFTER FRIDAY. MAIN
CHANGES WERE CONTINUE TO SLOW THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEXT SYSTEM AND
EXTEND THE PERIOD OF ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES.

That's not encouraging if you plan on making snow and selling lift tickets this week...I got the impression that next weekend could be less than ideal for snowmaking as well.

I have to remind myself of what my Boss said back in September: "I want to open Thanksgiving. I want to open when we're ready"

That happy thought didn't save me from remembering how much waiting lies ahead.