Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Thunderstorm this Wednesday 9 June our summit day?

Lightning is predicted Wednesday, our summit day. Who has experience with bad June weather on Whitney? It looks like we will have to stay off the summit and we may have to see how things develop lower. Looks like a 20 temp drop too. This is gonna be exciting...yah.

Which way are u going as my summit day is also the 9th

A weather forecast 4-5 days out is almost useless. In addition, the important question is whether there will be only isolated T-storms or serious frontal activity. If only isolated T-storms, you can usually climb early and be safely down the mountain before the late aftenoon build-ups begin. If you see major build-ups and hear thunder when you are climbing, it would be a very bad idea to be anywhere near the summit at that time. It usually comes down to a judgement call on summit day.

As of Sunday, 6/6, the forecast is talking about only a 20% chance...sounds like typical afternoon t-storms.

Your best bet is to get a very early start (be on the trail at first light, before 05:30) and be off the summit well before noon.

We've dodged t-storms on several trips to various mountains, including Whitney in 2001 (see trip report under the "highpointing" section of my <a href="http://www.mtritter.org">WWW site</a>), when we summitted about 10:30 or 10:45 and beat a hasty retreat a half-hour later, with threatening conditions on the way back from the summit to Trail Crest and then more weather as we made our way back down the switchbacks.

The key is to watch for developing clouds and clear out before they gather and rise enough to start lightning.