10 days to the Birkie.

In 2017, we posted that we had a problem. And we did.

This year? All systems appear to be go. There’s snow on the trail. The warmest day, today, might hit 40˚ in Hayward, but it will be dry, so the snow won’t get washed away. Plus, it was 17˚ last night and will be 20 tonight, so the snowpack will retain the cold through the day. The top might slush up a bit, but it will refreeze tonight, ready to till away. Six hours above freezing won’t kill the race. Last year, the temperature was above freezing for 130 hours during the week before the race. For 64 of those, it was above 45. The numbers this year will likely be closer to 12 and 0. That we can survive.

So it’s warm (but not too warm) today, then cooler tomorrow, a little warmer this weekend (towards freezing, but maybe not above) and the cooler early next week. And then it gets interesting. But good interesting! The models seem to want to spin up a storm along the jet stream south and west of Hayward. Some models have the storm grazing Hayward, but some have a more direct hit. There’s an outside chance a foot of snow could fall next Monday and Tuesday. More likely it will be three or four inches. But that’s icing on the cake, since temperatures look to stay low enough afterwards it will be a powdery race on Saturday.

Nothing is set in stone. There’s still a chance the jet stream buckles and the storm surges warm air north (while it doesn’t seem likely, it did show up on one model run yesterday). But for being 10 days out, I’m much happier where we are this year than where we were in 2017. Or 2016. I’m going to go out on a limb (but really not too far): best Birkie conditions since 2015.

See you in Cable.