Wednesday Showers:
Showers are starting to move into the northern Sierra early Wednesday morning and will increase into the morning hours. The showers should have the best coverage through the morning with scattered showers into Wednesday night. Ridgetop winds from the west gusting up to 40-50+ mph. Highs in the 30s.
The snow levels are starting out near the base Wednesday morning, but look to rise to 6500-7500 ft. by afternoon, and then fall back near the base by the end early Thursday morning as the storm clears the region.
For the final snowfall forecast, I have mostly a mix of rain and some wet snow with a coating to an inch near the base. Above 7000 ft. we could see 1-4 inches of snow by early Thursday morning.
Thursday Weather:
Thursday still looks partly-mostly sunny with lighter winds and highs in the 30s.
Friday – Saturday Showers:
The latest model runs have started to trend the southern edge of the precipitation to our north a bit farther north, with the southern edge barely reaching the Tahoe basin. We may see some clouds and maybe a few scattered showers on both days.
The snow levels look to rise up to around 9000 ft. so we should mainly see rain showers if any both days. Highs into the 40s for the lower elevations and 30s for the upper mountain.
Sunday – Tuesday:
Drier and mild Sunday through Tuesday as high pressure strengthens over the West. Partly-mostly sunny skies each day. Highs into the 40s, and close to 50 degrees for the lower elevations near lake level.
Long-Range Forecast:
The latest model runs continue to show the pattern shifting on the 31st as the extended Pacific jet stream helps to try and push a storm into CA as early as the 31st, with some models holding off until the 1st.
I’ve been calling this setup getting snow the hard way for years and all season as we saw this setup the last week of December and again last weekend, and the storms split with weaker mild systems reaching the northern Sierra. The jet stream looks to be aimed at Southern CA and this storm could split and the heaviest precipitation could dive into SoCal.
We could still see a shot of rain and snow for a day or two with the storm, so we’ll keep an eye on it as we get closer.
The long-range models show troughing over CA through the end of the 1st week of February, but the extended jet stream looks to retract pretty fast after the storm on the 1st. If any storms move into the trough after that, they could be weaker.
BA
