Saturday – Tuesday Weather:
Mostly sunny skies each day through Tuesday with highs in the 40s. The winds will get a little gusty over the ridges on Sunday, gusting up to 30-50+ mph.
Wednesday – Thursday Storm:
The details around the Wednesday storm are starting to come into focus as it gets closer. The latest model runs show showers reaching the mountain around 4-6 AM. We may only see lighter showers during the day ahead of the front. The winds increase with ridgetop gusts up to 50-70+ mph from the southwest. Highs in the 30s.
The winds may turn more southerly during the afternoon which will limit spillover and heavier precipitation pushing over the mountains. The snow levels may also be around 6300-7300 ft. with some rain showers for the lower elevations near the base. Wednesday night the front pushes through and brings heavier precipitation along with colder air.
The snow levels drop below 4000 ft. behind the front, so this heaviest precipitation period Wednesday night should be all snow to the base. Then snow showers could linger into the day on Thursday with a moist westerly flow over the mountains, and then clearing out Thursday night. Highs in the 30s near the base and 20s up top with lighter winds for Thursday.
The biggest limiting factor for snowfall will be the southerly flow with double the precipitation totals to the west in the foothills. The snow ratios could average around 14:1 near 8k’ through the entire storm. Thursday morning should be a pretty good powder day with most of the snow falling Wednesday night. Storm totals by Friday morning could be around 14-20 inches at the base and 23-30 inches up top.
Additional Storms Next Weekend:
The next storm is still on track to move through northern California on Friday. The latest trend on some models is for a wetter storm than previous forecasts.
Snow showers could linger into Saturday with another storm possible for Sunday into Monday the 17th. This storm is looking wetter on some forecast models as well as it taps some moisture from out north of Hawaii.
That definitely makes the long-range forecast more interesting as these storms looked smaller/weaker previously. But some models still show weak systems so don’t get your hopes up yet. We’ll continue to watch the trends all week.
Long-Range Forecast:
The longer-range models continue to show high-pressure building in off the West Coast beyond the 18th, but it looks fairly weak. There’s an active storm track just to our north and the trend on the latest model runs is for a better chance of some of them brushing us with a little precipitation on the southern edge later in the month.
But overall the ensemble mean models continue to show a drier pattern overall after a more active pattern over the next 10 days.
BA
