Why can't noaa get it right?

The weather in the Northwest, can be, and has been, a difficult thing to predict, and I suspect will never be an exact science.  I enjoy the fact that mother nature is sometimes unpredictable and constantly keeps us on our toes...guessing what might happen.

That being said, the internet, and the tools available to us when it comes to the weather allows us to (sometimes) make our own weather predictions no matter what the weatherman predicts.

You might want to give Mike Fagin a try -- he has been doing mountain focused forecasts for a couple decades in the NW -- and in recent years has been providing weather forecasting services to many major expeditions (Everest, K2, etc)

His website wowweather.com/ provides a general forecast for various regions -- and if you subscribe to his services you get more detailed forecasts as well as a number of custom forecasts for particular destinations.

It's not just the forecasters up here who are having a tough time. Here's a quote from today's Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center advisory which immediately made me think of this thread:

SNOWPACK AND AVALANCHE DISCUSSION

Heavy snowfall and extreme winds hammered the eastern Sierra today. Reno NWS underestimated storm dynamics and the resulting snowfall and QPF for Mono County by about 200 to 300%. The forecasted 5” inches turned into 20 inches at 9,000 ft with most areas receiving 10-18 inches of new snow depending on how strong the wind was blowing. Rock Creek Lodge reported 4 to 24 inches at the Lodge and noted significant crossloading on the east and northeast slopes of Mt Starr. Farther south, Bishop Pass received 9 inches of new snow and Charlotte Lake received 14 inches.

Well, at least they've been getting dumped on now for the past week, so all the "no snow" complaints from Cali should stop.