We can proudly say that our opening day and first storm prediction were right on the money.  However, it left a lot to be desired. 

It snowed Thanksgiving weekend and Boreal promptly opened that Saturday.  The rest of the resorts followed the week after.  Unfortunately, our coverage is very thin and we continue to get teased by storms.

The Tahoe area has probably received 5 inches of rain since Thanksgiving, which makes for a sad story.  Storms have been coming in from the north only to sink down south and warm back up before they show up at our doorstep.  Or the storms will approach and then get sucked up north by the jet stream and high pressure which keeps coming back to Tahoe.  Currently, a cold storm has come down out of the north and has drifted our way only to stall on the sierra crest, look us in the eye, point and laugh and now it seems be breaking apart and sliding back up north.  I expect that Tahoe will still get as much as 6 inches on the sierra crest out of this storm.

Luckily, the little snow Tahoe has received was in the form of a wet and icy mix that was so thick it pasted onto just about everything including the lava rock.  It actually put out some great skiing.  The storm resulted in a surface consisting of several inches of thick pow on top of a firm and crusty layer.   The top layer was so thick that even though it was just a few inches, it felt bottomless.  Plus, it stuck to everything, so the resorts have actually been able to open quite a bit of terrain.  At higher elevations things are a bit different.  Mt. Rose benefited greatly from its high elevation and they got a lot more snow then lower resorts because those higher elevations translated into colder temperatures and snow instead of rain.  Elevations above 8000 feet received as much as 2 feet more than at 7000 feet.  The temperatures are now cold and the snow Tahoe should receive in the next day will be light and fluffy.  It should make for some great skiing on northern exposures where the base is still a bit soft.  However, watch out for dust on crust conditions in sun exposed areas. 

You can be sure that the long term weather forecast of cold temps and no snow has a lot of people nervous around here.  In addition to the skiers, the local shops and resorts who, depend on the area's tourism, are starting to feel this snow drought.  Prime tourism season approaches and Tahoe has very little snow.  Hopefully, the snow will come before the holidays.  The resorts ideally want to have a very healthy base and nice clear weather over the holidays.  It is far from ideal for them to get dumped on during the holidays because although the die hard skiers are happy, it is easiest to milk the family clientele when easy traveling conditions exist and the whole resort can be opened with conditions amicable for services such as lessons.  Over the last couple years Tahoe has seen scenarios where the holiday season was overwhelmed with blizzard like conditions.  These conditions actually forced the resorts to close on the very days they aspire to be open because of the extraordinary revenue potential.  Furthermore, the conditions caused chaos in town because all the tourists would become trapped in the area with limited skiing and dangerous driving conditions.  Seeing that, Tahoe doesn't have many ski in/ski out facilities, driving is a requirement.  What makes it worse is the poor road infrastructure in the area.  The number roads are limited because of the mountain passes and except for a couple of short sections they are only one lane roads.  Poor road conditions, at the height of tourist season, makes it impossible to go anywhere.  The roads generally come to a dead halt while the rookie snow drivers are busy playing bumper cars and stopping traffic while they try and figure out how to put on chains or in some cases where their 4wd button is.  The amazing thing is that the tourists never seem learn.  I think Tahoe has had a couple consecutive seasons where heavy snow conditions are forecasted, the tourists come up in big numbers anyways and the roads turn into a nightmare.  Tourists sit in traffic for hours just to get here only to get here and sit in traffic some more and finally to sit in traffic on their way home and not even get to ski much if at all.  You would think they would learn, but they keep coming back for more.