Saturday – Sunday:
We’ll see increasing winds into Saturday afternoon with some sun and clouds and highs warming to near 60 degrees at the base.
Sunday will be windy as well with increasing clouds into the afternoon. Most of the moisture is forecast to stay to our north through most of the day, but we may have a better chance of seeing some scattered rain showers by afternoon into Sunday night.
Snow levels are forecast to stay above 9000 ft. Sunday and only drop to around 8000 ft. by early Monday morning. So we aren’t expecting any accumulating snowfall through Sunday night.
Monday Storm:
Monday will be a stormier day with gusty winds continuing from the southwest with ridgetop gusts up to 70-80+ mph along with some steadier rain and snow bands moving through. There is colder air with this system that will drop snow levels through the day on Monday and into Monday night.
The latest forecast model runs show snow levels dropping to around 7000 ft. by late morning Monday into the afternoon, and then near the base near the end of the storm Monday evening.
The latest model runs are coming in a bit wetter for Monday. The limiting factor with snowfall with this storm will be the snow levels starting high Sunday night into early Monday, and the ground being warm and snow-free.
For the base areas, we could see some snow near the end Monday evening, but not enough for more than a coating to an inch based on the latest model runs. For the mountain above 7000 ft., we could see snow start to accumulate on Monday, but it may be very wet with low snow ratios. We could see 2-5 inches in total, with up to 6 inches on the high end for the peaks.
Tuesday – Thursday:
With the colder air behind Monday’s front, highs will only be in the 40s the rest of the week near the base and 30s for the upper mountain. On Tuesday we could still have a few scattered showers around along with some sun. Then mostly sunny and cool through Thursday with lighter winds. The nights should be cold enough for snowmaking with low in the 20s.
The next storm is still forecast to drop into the West Coast Friday. The latest model runs have trended the track a bit east into the Sierra. We’ll keep an eye on this system all week to see if it could bring more light snowfall amounts to the mountain. Showers could linger into next Saturday with possibly a drier day next Sunday the 12th.
Long-Range:
The long-range models are at odds beyond next weekend. Some show troughing continuing over the Pacific NW and northern CA with the chance for more storms. That would likely bring a similar pattern to this week where the heaviest precipitation continues into the Pacific Northwest and lighter amounts into northern CA.
Others show the opposite with high-pressure ridging over the West the week of the 13th with below-average precipitation forecast for CA and the Pacific NW and most of the West. We’ll have to try and get a handle on where the pattern could be going beyond a week…
BA
