Storm Watch, 2/9/10

8:00 pm – internet difficulties (due to power to the booster) kept me from getting online this afternoon. Snow stopped about 3:30 pm, and never really accumulated much. I’ll bet Cone Peak is really pretty — if I could see it, that is! Road photos tomorrow if internet allows.

12:30 pm – a bit of accumulation, but not enough to make a worthwhile shot, yet. If it does, you can bet I’ll have my camera on it!

11:30 am – nothing the last 2 hours, but the REAL snow has finally hit!! Woohoo! A snow storm!!

9:30 am – the snow started. Let’s see if it keeps up. It is only very, very light, and I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t seen the flakes on my black sweater!

8 am – I know. My titles are boring. I was going to try more creative ones, but then, I needed to go through my Chalk Fire archives, and it was a piece of cake, because of my titles by subject and day. I realized it would behoove me to stick with storm watch, if that was the subject, and the date, so that I can locate these easily in future years.

It began to rain around 2 am here, with heavy showers between 2:30 am and 3:00 am, and I received 1.25 inches by first light. While there are clouds both overhead and on the western horizon, there is also blue sky at the moment. NOAA discussion states: “AS OF 3:42 AM PST TUESDAY…SHOWERS THROUGH TONIGHT WITH SNOW LEVELS DOWN TO 3000 FEET IN MONTEREY COUNTY.”

The discussion goes on to say: “AS MENTIONED ABOVE THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY HAS BEEN DROPPED OVER MOST AREAS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE SANTA LUCIA MOUNTAINS AND LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST. ACCORDING TO THE 0900 UTC RUC ANALYSIS THE UPPER LEVEL LOW COULD BRUSH BY THIS AREA DROPPING SNOW LEVELS TO 3000 FEET AND LOCALLY TO 2500 FEET DURING PERIODS WHEN PRECIPITATION WOULD BE FALLING. THIS WILL RESULT IN SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES OVER THE NEXT 12 HOURS PROMPTING A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR ELEVATIONS GREATER THAN 3000 FEET IN THIS AREA.”

I am at 3272 ft. so that could make for an interesting day. I will keep any interested readers posted throughout the day, with photos, if possible.

*ROAD UPDATE* The slip out just south of Lucia Lodge is indeed only one lane, but work going on out there. There are stop signs and flaggers during the day, but no signal light as of yet. I have some photos I will try to post later today. Shale Point slip out is almost finished, and most of the equipment has been removed from up top, so both lanes are open. The horizontal drains north of Ragged Point are still being installed, and that is one lane with flagging during the day until the end of the month. Of course, the signal light for the one lane is still present at Rain Rocks, and will remain until 2014 while work continues on the rock shed and the bridge. However, there are no more night road closures.