Tuesday – Saturday:
The center of highest pressure will be sitting near the West Coast through the end of the week. That will block storms with mostly sunny skies expected each day through Saturday as the dry pattern continues.
We will be on the east side of the high-pressure ridge off the coast which will continue a northerly flow of colder air into the region, and below-average temperatures. Highs into the 30s each day, with 40s possible for the base briefly on Friday. Winds gusting up to 30+ mph each day, turning from the northeast to the west Friday.
Sunday – Tuesday:
Colder and windier weather is expected for Sunday into early next week as the ridge near the coast shifts west and a cold trough digs into CA from the north. Highs drop into the 20s for the upper mountain and 30s at the base starting Sunday. The winds could become strong enough to affect some upper mountain lifts into Monday.
We are tracking a system or two that will drop down from the north between Sunday and Tuesday. The latest model runs don’t agree on the exact track of the systems from the north. They could stay drier over land or they could track closer to the coast and tap into some Pacific moisture.
We’ll continue to watch the trends to see how much snow we could see Sun-Tue. Overall I’m expecting the snow to fall in inches not feet.
First Week of February:
Going through the first week of February, the long-range models continue to struggle with the pattern and storm tracks for CA. We could be right on the southern edge of the storm track with only lighter precipitation reaching us at times, but that could also place the jet stream into northern CA at times with some wetter storms possible.
We’ll continue to watch the trends. I think the forecast models are going to struggle with the storm tracks until we are within a few days of each storm, but overall we are expecting a colder and somewhat more active pattern starting Sunday.
BA