I have some good news this morning with an upward adjustment in the snowfall forecast for Tuesday night. Outside of that not much has changed with the forecast. We have an area of low pressure that is spinning off of the coast and will move slowly south through Thursday bringing us colder air and 4 days of snow showers.

We have some light snow showers moving in along the crest this morning (Monday).

Here is a look a the Sugar Bowl webcam this morning showing some steady showers.

These are associated with the leading edge of the cold trough digging south into CA. We have highs only in the 20s for the upper mountains today through Thursday and 30s at lake level. The winds are gusting to 60+ mph over the ridges this morning and will increase up to 80+ mph today likely affecting some lifts. We will see good mixing down to lake level with some gusts to 50+ mph. Wind chills will make it feel colder than the air temps.

The scattered and light snow showers should mostly be confined to the west side of the lake along the crest Monday through Monday night. We could see a break Tuesday between the moisture streaming in ahead of the low and then arrival of the precipitation on the east side of the low as it spins into CA Tuesday night. Total precipitation amounts through Tuesday are pretty low, especially east of the crest across the Tahoe Basin.

We may only see a dusting to an inch of snow on the mountains on the east side of the lake and at lake level through Tuesday, with snow having a hard time sticking to the warmer surfaces at lake level during the day. West of the lake and along the crest we could see 3-6 inches of snow through Tuesday.

Snow levels starting around 5000-5500 ft. Monday, falling below 3000 ft. Monday night, and back up to around 4500-5000 ft. Tuesday. Snow ratios around 12-15:1 on the mountains during the day and 15-20:1 at night. The winds should be lighter Tuesday but still gusting 30-40+ mph over the ridges.

Tuesday Night Special:

Things have gotten a little more interesting on the models for Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Just about all of the forecast models have been trending the track of the low slightly farther east as it moves south through CA. That would bring slightly more precipitation Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. The range on the models is 0.3 - 0.5 inches Tuesday night with another 0.1 - 0.2 inches into Wednesday.

That is not a lot of precipitation at 0.4 - 0.7 inches, but it's really cold Tuesday night with snow ratios of 15-20:1 on the mountains as snow levels fall to 3000 ft. If it's 17:1 at 8k that's 5-9 inches of fluffy powder along the crest Tuesday night and 3-5 inches on the east side of the lake.

Then snow ratios of 12-15:1 Wednesday with another 1-3 inches possible. That could be 4-12 inches on the mountains in total Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. A nice little helping of fluffy powder.

Snow Showers Continue into Thursday:

The low is slow to depart as it moves slowly into southern CA Wednesday into Thursday and then finally to the east. We could see scattered snow showers continue Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. The flow turning from the east on the north side of the low Thursday with some upslope snow showers that could favor the east side of the Sierra. Snow levels fluctuating between 3000-5000 ft.

The winds look to be lighter Wednesday into Thursday and it is still cold. We could see some peeks of sun between scattered snow showers with most of the snow showers likely over the mountains with the orographic lift. It will be hard to get any accumulations during the day at lake level. Precip amounts through Thursday with the showers look very light maybe a final 1-2 inches of snow on the mountains.

The forecast models are in decent agreement this morning on total precipitation amounts Monday through Thursday. The range on the high-end along the crest being 0.8 - 1.2 inches with an average this morning now up at 1.08 inches, with up to 0.6 inches on the east side of the lake.

The GFS v16 is the outlier this morning showing a bullseye west of Lake Tahoe with up to 1.6 inches of precip on the crest. Most of the forecast models show slightly more precip possible south of the lake from around Kirkwood south to Dodge Ridge. The GFS & Canadian models have a bullseye over Dodge Ridge with up to 2 inches of precip, & you can see that on the WPC model above as well.

I don't know that I buy into 2 inches, and the heavier precip could be to the south of Kirkwood. So I'm keeping Kirkwood in the forecast range of the rest of the ski areas, but they could have a better chance of seeing the high end. For Bear Valley and Dodge Ridge, this isn't a guarantee, but I would bump them up to the high end of the forecast up to 24 inches possibly if either mountain sees over 1.5 inches of precip.

This is the final forecast before the arrival of the storm that I get graded on, but we are still 36 hours out from the steadier snowfall potential for Tuesday night. The wetter model runs are new this morning so we will take another look Tuesday morning to fine-tune the forecast. Don't forget to tell your friends that we won't have much snow around the lake through Tuesday, only up along the crest. So no calling the storm a dud until we see what happens by Wednesday morning.

The Weekend:

High pressure builds in over CA Friday into Saturday. That will bring mostly sunny skies and warming temperatures. Highs into the 40s at lake level and 30s for upper mountains.

That weather may continue into Sunday but we could see some changes later Sunday that I'll talk about in the extended forecast section.

By next Monday the next cold trough may be digging south into the Western U.S. and CA. 

That should at least bring another shot of colder air for early next week. We could see some light snow with the arrival of the trough. The GFS model is the fastest and most aggressive with bringing some light snow by Sunday evening into Monday. The rest of the models have the system dropping down farther east possibly brushing us with light snow or keeping us dry.

The trough digging into the West is likely going to be too far east for us to get more than just colder air and possibly a dusting of snow, but we will keep watching it. As we go through the week of the 15th the trough may start to shift slightly farther east with little chance for any storms.

Fantasy Range:

As we get towards the end of the 3rd week of March into the last week of the month we see subsequent troughs digging south off the West Coast. 

I am still hopeful that we could see the pattern allow a stronger system to move into CA later in the month. But we are also getting late in the season. The troughs may not dig far enough south. But we will keep an eye on it as the potential is there for a final good storm or two before we roll into April. 

Stay tuned...BA

P.S. I get a lot of questions when the automated snowfall forecasts on the right sidebar & mountain pages are higher for some mountains than my forecast table. Our automated forecasts average 3 models (soon to be 4). I am averaging 11+ in my forecasts. If you get an outlier like the GFS showing higher snowfall amounts, that will skew the automated forecasts higher as you are only averaging that model in with 2 other models versus 10 other models on my forecast table.

Also, a new episode of The Flakes Podcast is out!

We all know that there are no snow reporters in remote locations & the backcountry. Now, instead of trying to guess how much snow fell in your favorite location, we've come up with a way to accurately estimate the snowfall! Check out our new estimated snowfall reports!

https://opensnow.com/news/post/new-estimated-24-hour-snow-reports

Also, please continue to submit more GPS locations for us to add to the backcountry maps!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScD_wYFMpyWlsgCrEjIOtHBWPBb4U0oJjs-I7-EcKBlV-93Zw/viewform