Never fall in love with a model run. That said, I love the 12Z GFS model run. It prints out a high temperature in the next two weeks of 33 in Hayward. And it prints out 1.5 inches of liquid equivalent precipitation, which would equate to, oh, a foot and a half of snow. And, 384 hours out, it shows a race-time weather in the single digits, mostly sunny and light winds. As someone whose fastest skis are best on soft, cold snow, this would be fantastic.

Now, let’s not get carried away. Major caveats. First, temperatures early next week are forecast to be near freezing (1000-500 heights near 540; see the Weather Speculation Resources for more information about this), with some sun, so that could be warmer. Which the ECMWF suggests. Which could be, uh, bad. And all of the snow comes in the second half of the model run, which is the wildly variable half. So the next run of the model could show zero precipitation. The weather features it’s prognosticating are the figurative flaps of a butterfly’s wings right now. There’s no way of telling what my come. So the next model run could show the same thing, or it could show no snow at all.

A case in point: in Boston there has been a hint of a coastal storm for the last few days, but it’s been pushing all the snow out to sea. Now the models shifted, and one is showing 8-10 inches, less than 60 hours before the “event.” So things will change. Sometimes for the better. In any case, it’s never a bad thing to see favorable model runs pop up. It’s even better to see continuity. We’ll keep an eye on it and hope for the best.

We’re within 384 hours! We now get a model run that goes out to Birkie every six hours (at least) until race time. It’s not worth losing sleep over, but it’s a little too much fun.