Summary:

Some lingering light snow showers this morning behind a  cold front that moved through overnight.  Highs today will only be in the 20's on the mountains and 30's at lake level.  The sun returns and we begin to warm the rest of the week into the weekend, with highs at lake level into the 60's  by the weekend.  Next week the ridge may depart as a storm approaches the West Coast by Tuesday.  That could bring more cold and snow into Wednesday, followed by another storm the following week.

Details:

A few bands of moderate snow showers swept through in the early morning hours this morning leaving a coating of snow for most of the Tahoe basin.  The 5 ski resorts that are still open reported an inch of snow this morning up top.  As expected this cold front brought lots of cold for today.  High's may not get out of the 30's at lake level and 20's up on the mountains.

High pressure builds in off the coast by Wednesday with a warming trend into the weekend.  There is a still good forecast model consensus that the ridge shifts North next week, possibly allowing a storm to break into CA Tuesday into Wednesday.  We are now within a week of the storm and all of the forecast model runs show the possibility in some form, so it is getting a little more interesting.

Here is the GFS 500mb height pattern for next Tuesday.

If the the models have been correct all week then we could see a low roll right through Northern CA with a decent amount of precip.  So we will have to keep watching the trend on this one.

There are 5 resorts still open.  Squaw, Northstar, and Mt. Rose for North Lake, and Kirkwood, Heavenly for South Lake.  Northstar and Squaw have announced they are closing this Sunday the 19th.  Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong but I have not heard a closing announcement from the other 3 yet.  So we may still have a few resorts open next week if we see a snow storm.  

I drove past Kirkwood yeterday on the way to the San Jose airport.  The mountain was still fully covered in snow from the 2 feet they picked up last week.  It was also only 15 degrees going through the valley.  I flew out of San Jose back to NJ for the funeral because I have business in Fresno when I get back.  For those of you who don't know my day job I am in hospitality mgmt.  We currently manage 3 properties in the Tahoe basin which is great as I get to travel around the basin during the Winter for reporting, but we have others around the CA and the U.S. and we are taking over a new property in Fresno this week.  

Being in the tourism business in the basin I know how bad the 4 year drought has hit businesses.  The Summers have been good the last few years, so if you saved lots of money on skiing this season be sure to come up to escape the heat this Summer and to support all the businesses in the basin!

Long-Range:

Ok, back to weather.  I get distracted easily...Squirrel!  Looking at the pattern through the end of the month it looks like we could see more systems try to push into the West Coast the last few days of the month.  Not a super snowy April, but we have seen some activity and more snow than we had in January!  We have also seen more shots of cold this month than the previous 3.  

Ok, I have to go try to put together a eulogy.  Thanks to this blog my family thinks I am the writer in the family so it is turning into trend that I get to write the eulogies.

Stay tuned....BA

P.S.  The head honcho over here at Opensnow Joel the CEO has asked that I ask you to take an end of the season survey.  We take the readers input seriously here at the sight.  Over the past year we have added a lot of new features from feed back like the Live Snow app and putting the freezing levels on the individual resort forecast pages.  I know at least half of you come onto the site from you work computer when you are looking for a reason to take a mental break and surf the web, so if you can please take a few minutes and give us your feedback.  Thank you!

http://opsw.co/season-survey