Friday – Saturday Weather:
We will see some clouds on Friday and Saturday as storms are moving through just to our north. The latest model runs continue to trend the southern edge of the showers a bit north, with less of a chance of scattered showers reaching the Tahoe area.
There is still a small chance for a stray shower or two to reach the mountain, but overall we should see a fairly dry and mild pattern. Highs into the 40s on Friday and near 50 degrees at the base on Saturday.
Sunday – Tuesday:
High pressure strengthens over the West with the storm track even farther north. We should see partly-mostly sunny skies each day over the 3-day period. Highs into the 40s for the upper mountains and 50s for the lower elevations. It may feel like spring.
Wednesday – Thursday Storm:
The pattern starts to change on Wednesday the 31st. We should see increasing clouds and winds through the day, with southerly winds gusting up to 70-80+ mph over the ridgetops. That should affect some upper mountain lift operations. Highs into the 40s.
The storm will be splitting with the front and associated precipitation band streaming into the West Coast having a southerly flow. That will slow the arrival of the precipitation, maybe until Wednesday night in the Sierra. Then it eventually pushes in but drops south pretty quickly into Thursday.
The southerly flow should limit the amount of moisture that makes it over the crest across the Sierra, and the quick movement south will limit the overall precipitation totals for the 24-36 hour period. I will start to look at the details of the precipitation and snowfall forecasts tomorrow (Saturday) as the storm enters the 5-6 day forecast window.
As of this morning, I can see the forecast models showing the shadowing of the heavier precipitation with the heaviest precipitation to our north and to our south down the CA coast. Snow levels look to start higher and drop into Thursday. That will bring lower snow ratios along with the precipitation issues. We’ll continue to watch the trends…
Long-Range Forecast:
Troughing is still forecast to remain over the West Coast through the end of the 1st week of February. But with the retracting Pacific jet stream and a high-pressure ridge to the west of the trough, it’s going to get harder to see wet storms moving in off of the Pacific.
Storms coming in under the ridge or over the ridge and dropping down into the trough will likely spin up into the base of the trough over southern CA. If this forecast holds, we could go from above-average precipitation to our north over the next 5 days, a storm on the 31st-1st, and then above-average precipitation to our south over the following 5-7 days.
With the troughing forecast to be over the West Coast through the 8th – 9th, we should see an unsettled pattern for most of CA through the period, but with the storms being drawn south, we may only see weaker systems over northern CA. Hopefully, a wetter & colder storm will reach us during the period. We’ll continue to watch the trends…
BA