Hard to believe I was snowmobiling last week. But that’s the way it’s rolling here now.
We’ve avoided 50*F weather and excessive rainfall, our silver lining to a very dark cloud over ilsnow land. Remnant snowpack is 6-10 inches “in the woods” around Indian Lake, NY. Southerly exposures are thin with bare spots widening daily.
Some shady snow bowls in the central Adirondacks probably hold a foot-plus of remnant snowpack.
Snowmobiling conditions
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: We’re nearly skunked here!
Remnant snowpack is ripe. Narrow woods trails aren’t snowmobiling worthy at this point. You can slither into Perkins Clearing, Moose River Plains, Speculator Tree Farm or Powley Road if you’re really desperate to spin off a small handful of miles. But I can’t recommend that anyone travel from any real distance to do that.
Looking ahead
Our bleeding will stop by the weekend. But I can’t get very excited over the weather pattern setting up for next week. It’s not a blow-torch zonal Pacific flow. But the Polar Vortex (PV) is stuck near the Arctic Circle with no conduit to deliver true mid-winter cold here. Weather systems under this regime would be weak and unlikely to help us much with snow.
But…
Ensemble modelology indicates the possibility of a significant coastal storm developing over the weekend of January 14-15, 2023. It’s too early to get excited over this, but worth keeping an eye on.
La Nina Update
As I feared, entering our third straight winter with a moderately strong La Nina event would short-circuit this snowmobiling season from the get-go. But warming water near the South America Pacific coast indicates La Nina is beginning to weaken.
If the weakening trend continues, it could shift the hemispheric pattern enough to give us better outcomes for the second half of winter. That’s nothing better than conjecture though.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Adirondack Lake Cabins. Stay here and ride the snowmobile trails from your cabin with direct access to Trail S86 and Adirondack Lake in the Town of Indian Lake!
