The storm performed pretty much as expected the past 24 hours.  We saw the heavier precip move in during the late afternoon and evening hours and snow levels fell to lake level between 4-6 p.m.  Then we saw snow showers continue overnight with falling temperatures.    Here is a look at the Sugar Bowl boot cam at the base of the mountain.

This morning we have the ski resorts reporting 7-12 inches on the East side of the lake and 9-18 inches for the West side.  That's the lower end of the forecast for the first 24 hours but a good start.

We have wind gusts of 40-50 mph this morning on the mountain tops.  That should continue through the day and maybe decrease a bit this afternoon.  We are seeing a brief lull in the snow showers first thing this morning, but more showers will move in today from the West as the first system finishes moving through.

We could see 1-4 inches of snow on the East side of the lake and 3-5 inches on the West side today.  Then tonight we could see another 1-3 inches on the mountains from lighter snow showers.

Thursday it looks like we could have a break in the morning and then snow showers moving in again during the afternoon.  Only expecting an inch or two during the day. So today through Thursday only expecting several more inches to slowly pile up on the mountains.  Wind gusts could become stronger again Thursday ahead of the next wave.

Round 2:

The next wave of heavier snowfall is expected to move in Thursday night into Friday.  We could see an additional 6-10 inches at lake level and 7-15 inches on the mountains Thursday night, and then another 2-5 inches at lake level and 3-9 inches on the mountains Friday.

The snow showers linger into Friday night and maybe a few into Saturday morning along the crest.  Another 1-3 inches could fall Friday night and a dusting to an inch for Saturday morning.  Then we start to clear out into Sunday.

High temps expected to be in the 20's on the mountains the rest of the week, and 30's at lake level.  The forecast models are in decent agreement this morning that we could see up to 2.5 more inches along the crest and up to 1.5 inches on the East side of the basin.  Here is a look at the WPC total precip forecast from 5 a.m. this morning through Saturday.

  

Total additional snowfall amounts of 1-3 feet expected on the mountains by Saturday, most of which falls Thursday night into Friday.  Here is the updated forecast through Saturday.    

1-3 feet on top of the 7-18 inches so far would bring storm totals of 1.5 - 4.5 feet by Saturday.  We will continue to watch the trends for the next system Thursday night through Friday night to adjust the snowfall forecast one last time tomorrow morning if needed.

Post Storm:

It still looks like a break Sunday into Monday and the latest model runs still show a storm sitting off the coast by next Tuesday beginning to spread moisture into CA.  The GFS is still faster with a quick hit of several inches Tue-Wed.  The European model still stalls the storm off the coast longer with a prolonged period of precipitation Tue-Fri next week.  It doubles down on the precip that falls through this Saturday by next Saturday.

Either way it looks like more storms next week so we will be tracking those after we get through this storm.

We may stay active into the weekend of the 25th, but still signs we could go into a drier pattern the last few days of the month.

Stay tuned...BA

P.S.  I plan to be on mountain again today with live updates on the TahoeWeather FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages.

It's That Time of Year!

We’re conducting our annual user survey.  It would be awesome if everyone could quickly take the survey so that we can get your feedback and make opensnow.com even more awesome next year! 

http://opsw.co/2018survey.

Thank you!

BA