Sunday – Monday System:
Mostly cloudy Sunday with some scattered snow showers. The winds will be gusting up to 60-70+ mph from the WSW in the morning and 80-90+ mph by the end of the day. That will continue to affect some upper mountain lift operations. Highs in the 30s. Snow levels hovering near to just above the base for any passing showers. We could see a dusting to an inch of snow on the mountain through the afternoon.
Steadier snow moves through Sunday evening with the cold front, and then snow showers behind the front overnight. 3-6 inches of new snow could fall overnight.
We could see a lull in the snow showers Monday morning and then possibly increasing again Monday afternoon-evening before clearing out Monday night. It will be colder with highs only in the 20s on Monday. Breezy winds from the north-northwest gusting up 30-40+ mph up top. A final dusting up to an inch or two of snow is possible Monday.
Snow levels drop Sunday night into Monday with the steadier snow showers. That will bring some drier and powdery snow to the mountain and will help to fluff the snowfall from the low precipitation amounts. Here is the updated total snowfall forecast for Sunday – Monday.
- 3-7 inches at the base.
- 4-8 inches at mid-mountain elevations.
- 5-9 inches up top.
Tuesday – Thursday:
We start to go into a drier pattern Tuesday and Wednesday with mostly sunny skies expected. But it’s still cold with highs in the 30s. Thursday and Friday high pressure is building in over the West Coast with mostly sunny skies and highs warming into the 40s, and maybe near 50 degrees at the base on Friday.
Long-Range:
High pressure continues to build over the West through Easter weekend and into the week of the 10th. That will continue the dry pattern and warming trend over the West. Highs into the 50s over the weekend and into the 60s by the 10th-11th! The long-range models show the dry pattern and below-average precipitation continuing through at least the 13th.
Temperatures will likely cool down a little beyond the 11th as the ridge is forecast to start weakening and shifting east. By the 15th the long-range models continue to show lower heights over the West Coast with troughing near the coast. That would bring back some cooler temperatures and would open the door to storms moving into the West Coast.
By then we are going into the 2nd half of April when the chances for stronger storms continue to decline. The precipitation averages fall pretty quickly into May. That doesn’t mean that we won’t see a stronger storm move through with some measurable snow. We’ll keep an eye on the storms to see if any could spin up into CA with some measurable late-season snow for the mountain.
BA
