The Last 2 Days of Dry Weather:
Sunny and mild days continue through Thursday with highs in the 40s.
Friday – Sunday Rain & Snow:
We will see lighter showers move in Friday morning and become steadier into Friday night. Then an AR will direct heavy precipitation toward the Tahoe basin through Sunday. That will also flow in warmer air with the strong winds as colder air tries to push in from the north. We will likely have ridgetop gusts up to 70-100+ mph Friday through Sunday closing some upper mountain lifts.
That will bring fluctuating snow levels that will be very hard to predict. What seems certain is all rain at the base through Sunday night. On the mountain, snow levels could start just below 7000 ft. Friday morning, but then fluctuate between 7000 – 8500 ft. for most of the weekend.
The forecast models are showing anywhere from 4 inches up to 12 inches of liquid falling over the mountain by Monday morning. So the snow levels will make a big difference in snowfall totals depending on where they are and for how long. It’s very hard to forecast snowfall totals in a storm like this. All we can do is use an average of the model data and hope that it’s close.
Rain at the base with a slushy mix accumulating up to 1-18 inches as you go from 6500 up to 7500 ft. Amounts should dramatically increase for elevations that see more snow than rain going from 18 inches up to 4-5 feet of snow possible by Monday morning as you go from 7500 up to 8500 ft. near the top of the mountain where we should see mostly snow.
The forecast models have big discrepancies this morning with some only showing up to 3 feet up top and others up to 9 feet. We’ll continue to watch the trends closely over the next few days. If we see high precip totals and lower snow levels we’ll see more and if we see less and high snow levels less. But either way, it should be a dramatic difference from the base to the summit.
Monday:
Monday is a big question mark with some models showing the AR still directing precipitation at us even as the moisture plume becomes much narrower, along with snow levels possibly dropping close to the base. Other models show a break Sunday night through Monday night as the AR shifts to our north. We’ll continue to watch the trends.
Tuesday – Thursday Storm:
The storm doesn’t end there as another surge of moisture is likely as the low off the coast moves closer to the coast or inland by Wednesday, and the low to the north moves south through the region. That will help to finally clear the moisture feed out by Thursday with maybe some lingering showers around.
The snow levels could drop near and below the base during this period. We could see significant snowfall from Tuesday into WEdnesday with some snow showers possible into Thursday. We’ll continue to watch the trends with potential snowfall details as this comes into the 5-day forecast window over the next few days.
A Final Storm?
The latest model runs continue to suggest that another storm could move through around the end of next week for Friday into Saturday the 8th. We’ll continue to watch the trends on that as well. Overall it looks like an active end to January through the first week of February.
Long-Range Forecast:
The long-range models continue to show the West Coast trough shifting east during the 2nd week of February but trying to hold back over the West, with high-pressure building in over the eastern Pacific near the West Coast.
That could set up a pattern that blocks wet storms from moving inland off of the Pacific, with the ensemble mean models showing a much drier pattern for most of the West Coast. But it wouldn’t necessarily block weaker systems from dropping down from the north if we are still on the west side of the western trough.
BA