Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Forecast for Friday night and Saturday morning (8/1 - 8/2)

With dismay I've watched the forecast for clear weather on Friday night/Saturday morning (8/1 - 8/2) deteriorate into a 20-40% chance of rain during our climbing window, based on this site:
http://www.findlocalweather.com/pinpoint/us/ca/mount+whitney+trail/current571969.html

This will be my group's first time on Whitney. We're planning to do a day hike beginning around 3am on Saturday morning. In Colorado, where I've done most of my hiking of this sort, a 40% chance of storms in the high country is pretty much a guarantee of getting stormed on and generally tends to dissuade climbers from even making the trip. Does the forecast here tend to be similarly misleading, or does a 40% chance here actually mean that the chance for rain is less likely than no rain?

Also, this site is currently forecasting rain but no accumulation: http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Whitney/forecasts/2500

Is that their way of saying that the chance of rain is actually quite low?

If anyone's been up there this week and can comment on whether the forecast has proved as rainy as predicted and what that's meant for trail conditions, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks!

With all the cloudiness here on the west side of the Sierra, those chances of wet weather are pretty likely.

Go prepared, or don't go. August is just about here, the month when thunderstorms are most likely. Some years August is dry, but it isn't starting out that way this year.

Look at it this way: Life is long, the mountain will always be there.

You can almost always pick up walk-in permits, so you don't HAVE to win a slot in the lottery to go.

Fresno had a rare summer thunderstorm last night. Significant rain fell. (Really nice to wash all the dust off things here.) So beware in the Sierra!!

As I write this, checking the Doppler Radar (from the weather page), Devils Post Pile and Mammoth are really getting it right now.

When I went, it said 30% chance of thunderstorm/rain. It was actually 100% and the forecast was dead wrong. When we started at 2am, it was clear with stars filling the sky. Then hell broke loose. See it below:

http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/38973/Whitney_Main_Trail_7_20_14_Thu#Post38973

A 30% chance of rain/thunderstorms is more likely to mean that the storms have a 100% chance of occuring over 30% of the area, and that area is usually at the higher elevations; so you will probably get thunderstorms on Mount Whitney on a day when there is a 30% chance of them. The forecast was not dead wrong.

More info:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/?n=pop

No. Be a good scout and "be prepared".

Wednesday's forecast was for 50% chance of rain, but at 11,000 feet, near Table Mountain, above Bishop Creek, it rained off and on...and on...from 8:30 AM until 5:00 AM Thursday morning. So, I got 100% and people at a lower elevation got much less.

In the USAF, we called our met guys the "weather guessers".

Well, in our case we got lucky and had zero rain during yesterday's hike, which we began at 1:20am and completed at 6:30pm. However, it's been pouring rain in Independence since early this morning, and I can only imagine how unpleasant it would be to be up on the mountain today.

Great, Betty! In and out in the nick of time! Glad you had a good trip. The webcams look like the Sierra is socked-in for today. If anyone is up there, I can guarantee they aren't having much fun.

Bad day for the backcountry. Heavy rain started at 3AM and was a deluge into dawn and beyond. Doubt it stopped much - if at all. 43F at 10,000'. Bail.