Friday Weather:
We will have partly sunny skies to start on Friday with some clouds and increasing clouds and south winds. Ridgetop gusts up to 60-70+ mph by afternoon, likely affecting some exposed upper mountain lifts. The precipitation will look like it is getting close. But the models show showers not reaching the mountain until 1-4 AM Saturday.
Friday Night – Saturday Storm:
We will have a stormy day on Saturday with the winds coming down and highs in the 30s. We should see snow showers moving through during the day before starting to shift out of the area Saturday night.
Snow levels look to start around 7000 ft. after midnight, and then fall close to the base by Saturday morning through Saturday evening. They could hover in the 5900 – 6700 ft. range. That means we could see some rain mix in near the base.
I’m expecting total snowfall amounts of around 1-3 inches at the base and 2-6 inches on the mountain, with the highest amounts on the tallest peaks by Saturday night.
New Year’s Eve – Tuesday:
The weather looks fairly tranquil for the New Year’s holiday period. We could see partly sunny skies behind the storm on Sunday with highs into the 30s. On New Year’s Day, we could see a bit more clouds as a system moves through to our southwest and tries to brush us with a stray snow shower or two. A better chance to our south.
Tuesday we could see partly sunny skies again with highs continuing to be in the 30s during the day.
Wednesday – Storm:
The latest model runs continue to show the next system dropping down the coast on Wednesday. They have trended the track back east a bit today, which means a better chance of some snow showers reaching the Sierra Tuesday night into Wednesday.
I’ll start to forecast potential snowfall details for this system on Saturday. Right now it looks like similar snowfall amounts as the Saturday storm at best.
Thursday – Friday:
The weather pattern looks drier behind the Wednesday storm for the end of next week. We could see partly-mostly sunny skies with highs into the 30s.
Long-Range Forecast:
The long-range models have been very consistent all week with the forecast for a deeper and colder trough to push into the West Coast around the 7th. That could bring increasing winds for Saturday the 6th and then a storm moving through on the 7th.
The long-range models continue to show the cold trough progressing into the central U.S. by the 9th with high pressure building in the eastern Pacific near the West Coast, and this pattern possibly lasting several days through the 2nd week of January.
This pattern would bring colder air to mus of the West, but any storms would drop down from the north into the west side of the trough, which is an over land inside slider pattern where the storms are moisture-starved. So we are expected below average precipitation to continue through at least the 12th-13th.
Looking way out into fantasy land, there are some signs that the ridge trough pattern could retrograde westward by mid-January, opening up the door to wetter storms as they can dig south over water off the West Coast before moving inland. We’ll continue to watch the trends.
BA
