Summary:

A cold front will slide down the West Coas from the North tonight into Thursday bringing light snowfall to the basin.  Then the ridge builds back in off the coast warming temps and keeping us dry into next week.  Another inside slider system may bring some colder air for Christmas Day.  Still no big storms on the horizon.

Details:

A few little tweaks this morning.  The Euro and NAM have slightly increased precip amounts on the South side of the lake, the GFS for the North side of the lake for Thursday.  If this were to verify 3-6 inches would be possible instead of 1-3 inches where the heavier precip does fall.  Right now will stick with a general 1-3 inces at lake level with the chance some mountains could pick up 3-6 inches depending on how the precip band sets up.  These storms dropping from the North can surprise you with more snow like the last one, or less like the one before that.

Expecting the snow to start in the early morning hours and to be done by afternoon.  Much colder air behind the front for Thursday with highs only in the 20's.  Another system is going to try and drop from the North Friday night into Saturday but it will fall apart by the time it reach us.  We may see some more clouds though from this.  Temps will moderate back into the 40's for highs by the weekend.

Next week we could see a system drop down to our East and give us a shot of colder air around Christmas Day.  The pattern we are stuck in with the ridge off the coast will ocassionally allow for shots of cold from the North with light snow once a week or so, like we have seen the past several weeks.

Towards the end of the month there are still hints that the ridge shifts further North towards the Gulf of Alaska or Western Canada.  The European ensemble runs have it in the Gulf of Alaska to start the New Year with more cold for us from the North and light snow, but it tries to cut the jet stream under the ridge into the West Coast a couple of times.

For now we continue to wait for a change in the pattern for the next week or two.  Keep the faith....BA