Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 7 years ago March 20, 2017

A Waning Winter...

Update

I did a long and detailed post on this week yesterday.  This morning I will just go through some small changes.

We are heading into a colder week with several chances for some snow.  Today will still be mild with highs in the 40's on the mountains and 50's at lake level.  We could see gusts in the mountain tops to 40+ mph.

Then the colder and more active weather moves in for Tuesday through the weekend.  The first storm moves in late tonight into Tuesday.  The storm continues to show a bit of a split.  We have reduced the total precip slightly each day the last several days.  I think 5 days ago the high end forecast through Wednesday was 17 inches along the crest, and this morning it is a foot.

The heaviest precip is expected during the day Tuesday.  With the splitting nature the colder air is also delayed a bit in moving in.  Snow levels may sit between 7000-8000 feet most of the day Tuesday before falling Tuesday night below lake level after most of the moisture moves out.  Then the trough passage on Wednesday could bring light snow showers could bring a coating to an inch of snow.

Here is a look at the latest model run of the GFS for total precip for the Tuesday-Wednesday system.

gfs total precip

You can see the heavier precip to the North and South.  The European model shows a good split as well with a lot of shadowing for the East side of the lake.  Temperatures the rest of the week and into the weekend will only be in the 30's on the mountains, and near 40 at lake level.  Winds could gust to 50 mph up high Tuesday and diminish Wednesday.

Here is a look at the updated total snowfall forecast through Wednesday.  Most of this falls Tuesday, with an inch of it tonight, an inch Tuesday night, and an inch Wednesday for the high end.

new fcast

We have a break Thursday with some sun and cool temps continuing.  Then the next storm moves in for Friday-Saturday.  This storm is also trending towards a split with a downward trend in the total precip amounts in the latest model runs.  The GFS has slowed the heaviest precip until Saturday, the European is still bringing it in Friday.  We will have to keep watching the splitting trend.

The snow levels may sit between 6000-7000 feet for this storm.  Here is the updated snowfall forecast based on the latest model runs.  Similar to the Tuesday storm.

sat sun update

We may see a break Sunday and then one last cold and weak cold system may move through Sunday night with a dusting of snow.

Here is the total precip forecast for the next 7 days.

gfs total precip

Next week we may see the ridge build off the coast keeping most of the storms and moisture to our North.  We will watch to see if we can get more storms in April.  It does appear big storms are done for now, if not for the season.  We may be more likely to see smaller storms with snow in inches instead of feet now.

Stay tuned...BA

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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.

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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