Snowfall Report:
Snow levels started near the base on Friday with a light accumulation, and rose overnight as expected, up to around 7000 ft. with rain for the lower elevations. Only a coating of snow fell near the base before the rain, with around 4 inches at mid-mountain and 9 inches up top as of 5 AM Saturday.
Saturday Rain & Winds:
The heaviest precipitation is expected to fall during the day on Saturday as the moisture from the AR surges inland toward the northern Sierra. Ridgetop winds increase through the day with gusts up to 90-100+ mph by afternoon. That should keep quite a few upper mountain lifts closed. Highs in the 30s with snow levels continuing to rise through the day, up to around 8000-9000 ft. by evening.
The precipitation continues to stream in Saturday night but the heaviest starts to shift a bit north. Snow levels may peak around 9000-10,000 ft. by midnight.
Sunday Shift North:
It looks like the European model will end up beating the other models with its forecast for the AR to shift to our north starting Sunday into Monday. The latest model runs not only agree, but the trend is for the AR to shift north even faster, with lighter precipitation for Sunday.
This trend will obviously put a big dent in the precipitation totals for the weekend. We could still see steady rain & high elevation snow but not the heavy preciptiation rates we see on Saturday. Sunday night the the shift north continues with only scattered showers possibly.
The strong winds continue for Sunday with ridgetop gusts up to 80-100+ mph. Highs in the 30s near 40 degrees at the base. Snow levels could hover in the 9000-10,000 ft. range through Sunday night. Above 8000 ft. we could see an additional 10-15 inches of wet snow before the change to rain.
Monday – Wednesday Rain & Snow:
The moisture plume is expected to stay aimed to our north through the day on Monday. We could see even less precipitation than Sunday with mostly cloudy skies and ridgetop winds continuing to gust up to 80-100+ mph with highs in the 30s to near 40 degrees down at the base. The snow levels may lower to around 7000-8000 ft. by Monday evening.
Heavy precipitation is expected to return Monday night through Tuesday night, and possibly into the day on Wednesday before shifting south out of the region. The strong winds continue with ridgetop winds gusting up to 70-90+ mph on Tuesday and 60-80+ mph on Wednesday. Highs in the 30s.
The drier models that pull in less moisture are colder with snow levels dropping near the base. But the wetter models are trending higher with snow levels of around 6500-7500 ft. Monday night, rising a few hundred feet by Tuesday afternoon, and up to around 7300-8300 ft. Tuesday night before falling to around 6500-7500 ft. again on Wednesday.
That keeps all rain for the base with a mix between 6500-8000 ft. But we may see mostly all snow for the upper mountain above 8000 ft. with this round of precipitation. We could see around 15-29 inches of a mix and wet snow near mid-mountain, and 39-48 inches up top by early Thursday morning. We will continue to fine-tune the forecast as this complex storm continues over the next 5 days.
Thursday – Friday Storm:
The low-pressure center spinning near the Pacific NW coast through Wednesday, helping to direct the moisture into CA Saturday – Wednesday, is forecast to either move inland Thursday into Friday dragging a cold front through the region with snow showers, or dropping south along the coast and drawing in another moist system off the coast with another round of heavy precipitation for Thursday.
The difference is dropping snow levels and snow showers vs another round of rain and higher snow levels for Thursday. Then snow showers possible into Friday as the storms move inland. Strong winds likely continue with the wetter scenario. Highs in the 30s into Friday. We will continue to watch the trends closely.
Drier Pattern Possible:
High pressure is still forecast to build in closer to the West Coast next weekend, possibly bringing us a drier pattern from the 8th into the start of the week of the 10th.
Long-Range Forecast:
The strong ridge is up near Alaska is forecast to anchor there through at least mid-February in a -EPO pattern. The western trough is forecast to dig farther west during the week of the 10th as we get closer to mid-month, but the ensemble mean models disagree on how far west.
The European model is not as far west and only opens the door to colder air from the north and weaker systems possibly dropping down from the north, but overall a drier pattern. The GFS model continues to be farther west by the 14th. The difference looks subtle, but the GFS solution would open the door to low-pressure systems dropping south along the coast with the chance to draw in Pacific moisture.
We’ll continue to watch the trends…
BA