Today will be the last day of all sun and mild temps in the 50's for a while.  Winds look to be down a bit from yesterday even though they are still gusting to around 35 mph up top.  So it should be a beautiful day.

You most likely already know that we are about to have a pattern change back to Winter that will last through all of next week.  Here is a look at the highs today.

and the highs by the middle of next week...

The cool down starts this weekend as storms move through to our North and fall apart by the time they reach us.  Refer to the Summary for the winds, but we will see clouds and maybe a few stray showers Saturday and Sunday.  It does look drier on the forecast today, so it may mostly just be cloudy.

The bigger drop in temps happens Tuesday as the storm rolls in.  The forecast models are in good agreement this morning on timing on total precip amounts.  We could see rain and snow move in during the early morning hours Tuesday and continue with the heaviest precip during the day Tuesday.  Snow levels start above 8000 feet and fall below lake level by evening.  So that will limit accumulations at the lake.

It looks like very light snow showers could linger into Tuesday night and Wednesday morning as a weak wave moves through behind the storm.  We will have to watch with the daytime heating Wednesday to see if any convective heavier showers develop.  

Here is a look at the total precip forecast on the GFS that is similar to the European model.

Here is the snow ratio forecast through Wednesday.

and here is the updated snowfall forecast for total snow by Wednesday morning...  It is down a couple inches from yesterday.

It still looks like we will see a break Thursday but it stays cool.  Then Friday the next storm may push in.  It may start with lake level snow levels, so we may see more snow down low from this storm.  Right now it's too early for snowfall details as it is outside the 5 day window,

The total precip amounts look to be slightly more than the first storm on the latest model runs, and we could start with lower snow levels.  So by next Saturday morning we could see more snowfall with the 2nd storm than the first.  We will have to keep tracking it down...

Here is the total precip forecast on the Canadian model by next weekend, which is similar to the amounts on the other models.

and here is the GFS total snowfall forecast for the period...

The week of the 27th the long-range runs of the ensembles shows the possibility of some weaker storms moving through.  It will depend on how far off the coast the ridge sets up that week.  Some runs have it closer to the coast with dry weather returning, and other further off the coast with weak storms sneaking in.

As we head into April the jet stream continues to weaken and retract North, so it gets a lot harder to get significant snow storms into the area.  It's not impossible we do get Spring dumps, but it gets harder.  

Stay tuned...BA

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.