Sunday – Monday:
Beautiful weather for Sunday with mostly sunny skies, light winds, and mild temperatures. We are starting off the morning with some inversions. Temperatures are in the 20s at the base and 30s on the upper mountain. We will warm into the 50s on the mountain and near 60 degrees at the base by afternoon.
The sunny and mild weather will continue Monday. High temperatures will be similar to Sunday but the winds will be increasing through the day from the southwest as the pressure gradient tightens with a trough starting to dig in from the northwest. Ridgetop gusts could be around 30-40+ mph in the morning and 60-70+ mph by the end of the day, which could affect a few exposed upper mountain lifts.
Tuesday – Thursday:
A trough digs into CA Tuesday – Thursday bringing in some cooler air. High temperatures step down a little each day. Highs in the 40s for the upper mountain Tuesday and 50s at the base, and then 30s for the upper mountain Wed-Thu with 40s for the base.
The latest model runs have gone away from the idea of low-pressure spinning up into the base of the trough over CA. They are in pretty good agreement this morning that the storm track stays to our north through the end of the week. We could see a few clouds at times but precipitation is forecast to stay in northern CA and north into the Pacific NW.
That should keep the skies partly-mostly sunny through Thursday. The winds will still be gusty from the west Tuesday, with ridgetop gusts up to 50-60+ mph. Wednesday they may drop some and turn toward the northwest, with ridgetop gusts up to 30-40+ mph. Then lighter for Thursday.
Next Weekend:
The latest model runs show another high-pressure ridge building over the west through the 16th. That would continue the dry pattern with mostly sunny skies for Friday through next Sunday. We should also see a warming trend. Highs could warm into the 40s for the upper mountain and 50s for the base Friday and Saturday, and could approach 60 degrees at the base by Sunday.
Long-Range:
The week of the 17th we’ll be watching for some cooler air to possibly move in with the door open to storms moving into CA with any troughs moving through. The forecast models are all over the place with the forecast that week but do show storms trying to move through the Sierra at some point.
The models are terrible with storm forecasts during the spring months. Overall they are showing near-average precipitation for the 17th-24th after showing below-average through the 16th.
We’ll continue to watch the trends to see if any late-season storms will be able to move through northern CA and the Sierra beyond the 16th through the end of April. Between any storms, the strong April sun will bring nice spring weather, especially after a long cold and snowy winter.
BA
P.S. The next forecast post will be Tuesday, April 11th.