Good morning. No, you may not go windsurfing yet.
You may go skiing at Meadows, where Rob and his crew have worked miracles on the groom. It’s perfect conditions for learning to ski switch. You may also go ice skating at Laurence Lake on the settling pond. I’ve heard rumors that the entire lake is frozen too, but I’m not going to suggest you skate on the lake until those rumors are confirmed. I’ve also hear rumors of pickup hockey games up there.
If you want to play hockey or go ice skating, you’d better go early today before the “wintry mix” of precipitation hits tonight. Very cold air pooled in the Gorge is going to make for a messy situation with warm air and moisture flowing in above. We’ll see a mix of freezing rain and/or snow tonight and tomorrow, and possibly into Monday, depending on what happens with the cold pool of air.
Up on the mountain, models are all over the place. Sounding forecasts suggest it will be above freezing at ski slope elevations and precipitation models suggest 4000 foot snow levels. At this point, I think we’ll see heavy new snow, perhaps 6” by tomorrow afternoon. That will do nothing to improve the already-perfect groomers, but it will bond nicely to the icy mess off the groom. By the end of the weekend, the mountain should be in good shape.
If you want to ride your bike, do it today. By tomorrow, our trails will be covered in frozen water of some sort, and the roads will be covered in frozen precipitation and gravel.
In other news, Pipeline Masters is off for today, but probably on for tomorrow. Here’s the link to watch. There should be a highlight video from yesterday up soon as well: http://www.triplecrownofsurfing.com/pipelinemasters/index.html
If you can find clear sky tomorrow night, check out the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. The forecast calls for 140 meteors per hour, so this should be a good show if it’s not washed out by snow.
Finally, tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, so happy holidays to you if you celebrate the festival of lights!
Have a great day today!
Temira