Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 8 years ago September 30, 2015

Another Snowfall Up High This Weekend...

The past week the weather has been fairly quiet.  There have been quite a few clouds around though making for some great sunsets.  Below is a picture my wife took a couple nights ago from the house.

sunsets

There is a low sitting off the CA coast that will eject inland tomorrow.  The model trends the last couple of days have been to bring the low right across Southern CA instead of to the South.  This has increased the chances for precipitation the last couple of days.  Some of the latest model runs are showing up to .5 - 1 inch of liquid across the Tahoe basin.  That would be a decent little rain event for Wednesday into Thursday.  Snow levels will stay high, above most peaks except maybe a coating at 10,000 on some of the highest peaks.

Another low now looks like it will drop down over Oregon and across the Sierra Saturday night through Sunday night.  This system coming from the North will have more cold air with it.  The GFS and European model runs are still at odds on the exact track. These slider systems can be tricky.  Sometimes they bring less precip than expected and keep it East of the basin, and other times we get surprised with a more Westerly track down the Sierra and a decent shot of precip.

The GFS keeps the precip amounts light, but the European runs are further West with up to a half inch or more of liquid. Snow levels could dip to near 8,000 feet Saturday night into Sunday morning so we could see a few inches on most mountain tops.  We will have to keep watching the track of the low to see how much snow may fall in the higher elevations.  Below is GFS total precipitation forecast through Monday.

gfs total precip

So definitely a more active weather pattern developing through the weekend.  Then a flat ridge brings more quiet weather next week.  Highs at lake level will dip into the 50's Thursday and Sunday with the storms, and 60's in between and next week.

With a flat ridge along the coast next week we may see a trough push into the Northwest the following weekend that may push far enough South to bring some more precip around the 10th.  We'll have to see.  

As far as El Nino all regions have leveled off or cooled the past week.

nino regions

So we are sitting with a strong El Nino heading towards Winter.  The forecast models are showing a peak in strength between now and December, so not expecting a lot more strengthening into an Godzilla territory.  The warm blob region in the Northeast Pacific also continues to cool every week.  It seems we continue to head towards a classic strong El Nino for the Winter.  We will continue to keep monitoring through the Fall and we will take another look at the Winter forecast in October.

Stay tuned.....BA

 

About Our Forecaster

Bryan Allegretto

Forecaster

Bryan Allegretto has been writing insightful posts about snow storms for over the last 15 years and is known as Tahoe's go-to snow forecaster. BA grew up in south Jersey, surfing, snowboarding, and chasing down the storms creating the epic conditions for both.

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