Tuesday – Thursday Weather:
The sunny days continue through Thursday with highs in the 40s.
Friday – Saturday Storm:
We start with light showers as early as midday Friday into the afternoon along with increasing winds from the southwest gusting up to 60-80+ mph over the ridges by afternoon. That will be the start of a windy weekend with a lot of upper mountain lift closures.
Then an atmospheric river of moisture takes aim at northern CA by Friday night into Saturday. The question is how far south near Tahoe? Some models only show up to half an inch of precipitation falling over the mountain by Sunday morning, while others show up to 3+ inches. Either way, we’ll see rain & high elevation snow Saturday with rising snow levels and strong winds continuing.
We could start out with snow levels around 7000-7500 ft. during the day on Friday, and then rising to around 7500-8000 ft. Friday night into early Saturday morning as the heavy preciptiation arrives. Then rising up to around 9000-9500 ft. Saturday during what could be the wettest period. They could peak out around 9250-9750 (above the peaks) Saturday night and sit near that into Sunday morning.
We could see a coating of snow just below 8000 ft. Friday before a change to rain. Above 8000 ft. we could see 5-10 inches of wet snow before a change to rain by Saturday evening. Then rain showers are possible into early Sunday morning.
Sunday – Monday Weather:
The question is what happens with the AR on Sunday? Most of the models shift the AR far enough north that we could just see some clouds and gusty winds with little to no preciptiation. Other models suggest the AR is closer with some rain showers possible. We’ll be watching the trends on that.
The gusty winds are not going away, possibly until the end of next week, as the low near the Pacific NW coast continues to spin with the jet stream underneath over northern CA. We may stay fairly dry through Monday with the moisture staying to our north. Ridgetop winds continue to gust up to 70-90+ mph each day.
Long-Range Forecast:
The low to our north will finally move south down the coast Tuesday through Thursday and it could draw in more moisture from the low off the coast as it moves towards the West Coast Tuesday into Wednesday. That could bring another round of heavier preciptiation Tue-Wed and then showers are possible into Thursday as the low finally moves inland and east of the region by Friday.
We could see another storm try to move into the West Coast the weekend of the 8th-9th. We’ll keep an eye on that as well. We’ll have more details on potential snow levels and snowfall as we get closer.
The long-range models continue to trend toward high-pressure building in closer to the West Coast during the 2nd week of February as we go into the week of the 10th. That could bring us a drier pattern with no storms or weaker systems from the north. We’ll continue to watch the trends…
BA