Wednesday:
A fast-moving cold front will be approaching Wednesday. That will bring increasing clouds and winds through the afternoon. Highs into the 30s at the base and 20s for the upper mountain.
Ridgetop winds increase through the evening from the southwest, gusting up to 50-60+ mph by the end of the day, and are even stronger through the evening hours. That may or may not affect some upper mountain lift operations by the end of the day.
Wednesday Night Storm:
The latest model runs show snow reaching the mountain between 4-6 PM and moving quickly southeast through the Tahoe basin. The heaviest snow will be with the passage of the cold front during the evening hours, with snow showers lingering into early Thursday morning before clearing as the sun comes up.
It will be cold with powdery snow falling on the mountain again with higher snow ratios helping to fluff up the snowfall from the lower precipitation amounts. Here is the final forecast for total snowfall expected by Thursday morning.
- 4-9 inches at the base.
- 5-10 inches at mid-mountain elevations.
- 6-11 inches up top.
Thursday – Friday:
We clear out Thursday with mostly sunny skies expected by late morning/afternoon. It’s cold behind the front with highs only in the 20s.
The center of the low associated with the Wednesday night system drops south through the Great Basin to our east on Thursday. That will turn the winds northeast with ridgetop gusts up to 40-50+ mph by the afternoon. That will make it feel very cold and blustery on the upper mountain.
The northeast winds come down some Friday but could still be breezy. It’s another sunny day but still cold with highs in the 20s.
The Weekend:
High pressure builds in along the West Coast through the weekend. That will turn the winds back to the west-northwest Saturday and we warm some with highs into the 30s, and near 40 degrees at the base with mostly sunny skies continuing.
Sunday a dry cold front moves through which will bring back some gusty northeast winds and colder temperatures again. We will have mostly sunny skies with highs only in the 20s. Ridgetop winds could be gusting up to 40-50+ mph from the northeast again. That will make it feel even colder, especially up top.
Long-Range:
High pressure is forecast to stay near the West Coast for at least 9 days through the 27th. That will block storms from reaching the West Coast with a dry pattern expected for this period. It will stay fairly cold through the period as we are on the east side of the ridge with a cold northerly flow into the West.
The long-range models continue to show the ridge retrograding northwest away from the West Coast the last few days of the month into the beginning of February. If this trend continues our dry pattern may only last for 10-11 days, with storms possibly returning around the 29th-30th into the first week of February.
We’ll continue to watch the trends as we get closer.
BA
