Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 7 years ago January 18, 2017

Here We Go...

Summary

Light rain and snow moves in today by afternoon. The snow levels start high this morning and fall to lake level by this evening. We could see an inch or two on the mountains. Then heavier snow moves in tonight and then tapers off by Thursday afternoon. We could see 10-19 inches at lake level and 12-25 inches on the mountains by Thursday afternoon. Thursday afternoon and evening we may see a break before the next storm moves in after midnight. Then heavy snow Friday. Friday night the snow turns to showers and then tapers off by Saturday morning. We could see additional snowfall of 6-15 inches at lake level, and 8-21 inches on the mountains. We could see another break Saturday afternoon and evening before another storm moves in after midnight. Then heavy snow Sunday and turning showery Sunday night. The snow showers may linger into Monday. By Monday afternoon we could have additional snowfall accumulations of 15-26 inches at lake level, and 17-35 inches on the mountains. Starting next Tuesday high pressure builds in bring a prolonged period of dry weather. Temperatures start cold and will gradually warm. The dry weather looks to last over a week before storms could return sometime during the first week of February.

Short Term Forecast

A few changes this morning.  It looks like high pressure will build in early today and keeps us dry for the next 6 weeks...

Trying to jinx the dry spell.  Seriously there are a few changes with the storm today on the latest model runs.  The trend is for better forcing and spillover of precip into the Tahoe basin tonight with the front.  The Canadian model is still showing quite a bit of shadowing.

cmc

But the other models are showing more precip pushing over the crest this morning.  Here is the NAM 12km.

nam

The European is similar to the NAM.  The GFS has had a big flip from the most shadowing to the least amount this morning.  It is now the wettest model with the storm tonight into Thursday morning.

gfs

So the snowfall forecast has been bumped up.  We should see light rain and snow moving in today before the push of heavy snow tonight.  Winds will be gusting over 100 mph on the ridge tops.  The snow should turn to showers by Morning and taper off on Thursday.  

Here is the updated snowfall forecast.  I would still lean to the low end with the higher precip model runs being recent after a couple days showing a lot of shadowing.

snow yay

If you are driving through the Sierra Thursday afternoon and evening is your window.  We may see some snow showers linger along the Sierra crest and high winds could be blowing around the powdery snow, but it will be the somewhat best conditions before the next storm rolls in.  

We should see snow move back in after midnight Thursday night into Friday.  Then heavier snowfall into Friday.  Friday night behind the cold front it looks like we will see some decent snow showers setup.  The European model runs keep the snow showers going into Saturday, but the GFS cuts them off by Saturday morning.

Here is the GFS total precip forecast through Saturday morning.

gfs

Here is the updated snowfall forecast for Thursday night through Saturday morning.

next storm yay

Saturday afternoon and evening there may be another window for travel as we could see a break before the final storm moves in.  Again, the winds will be blowing hard and blowing the snow around so still not ideal driving conditions.  The snow should return after midnight Saturday night.  The heavy snowfall Sunday and decent snow showers for Sunday night. 

The models have had some runs keeping the snow showers going through Monday.  The latest GFS/Euro runs taper off the snow Monday morning.  What is interesting is the Canadian model showing a low moving into to our South Monday keeping snow going into Monday night.  So we will watch the trend for Monday.  For now the total precip amounts with the final storm have come down from yesterday, but still good.

Here is the GFS total precip forecast through Monday.

gfs3

Here is the updated snowfall forecast for Saturday night through Monday.

final storm woo hoo

So now we begin the 6 days of snowfall this afternoon.  Get those shoveling arms ready.  I'm sure your fat skis are already on the racks from the last 2 weeks of big storms.

Extended Forecast

High pressure builds in Tuesday and then we should see at least a week of dry weather as the ridge sits over the West through the end of the month.

The long-range GFS and European model runs and ensembles show the pattern trying to shift the first week of February.  The ridge may shift West towards Alaska.  That could allow colder air and storms to drop in from the North if it shift back far enough.  We could also see storms start to cut in under the ridge.

The latest operational model runs show a storm possible between the 1st and 3rd of February.  Of course this is way off so we have to keep watching how the new pattern sets up for February.  But we will be watching for signs of the dry spell ending as we forecast next week.

Stay tuned...BA

Announcements

Geography Key:

East

Mt. Rose, Heavenly, Diamond Peak

Central

Northstar

West

Tahoe Donner, Homewood, Bear Valley, Dodge Ridge

Crest

Boreal, Donner Ski Ranch, Sugar Bowl, Squaw, Alpine, Sierra, Kirkwood

*Boreal and Donner Ski Ranch are forecast with the "West" mountains in higher snow levels events.

*The snowfall forecasts on the ski resort pages are for the upper mountains at 8000'.

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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