Here is a look at the storm totals from the last storm after the final reporting yesterday.

Not a bad little Spring storm series that freshened up the slopes after a prolonged dry and mild period.  Here is the keep me honest variance report for the storm.  Still having a trend this Winter of under forecasting slightly, which I'm trying to correct.

Overall the storms for the first half of the week performed pretty close to what we expected.

Over the past 48 hours there has really not been any changes in the thoughts for the storm moving in today.  Here is the look at the 6 a.m. radar image.

It's a splitting storm that will have a lot of shadowing for the East side of the lake.  That means the heaviest precip gets caught up West of the lake and along the crest.  Here is a look at the GFS total precip forecast where you can see that.

The precip should linger into tonight before tapering off and clearing out for Saturday.  Looking at the European and the NAM (below) they have similar amounts of precip forecast, with a high end of around an inch along the crest.

The snow levels could start lower in the heavier precip along the crest and on the west slope.  For the rest of Tahoe basin with the lighter precip the snow levels should sit around 6500 feet maybe to 7000.  Then fall this evening below lake level as some colder air moves in.

Here is the updated snowfall forecast, which is pretty much the same since Wednesday.

I talked about the winds up in the Summary sections.  On the mountain tops the winds could be gusting in excess of 75 mph today.  So there may be some wind closures of the lifts.  The winds look to really die off on Saturday.

A bit of a break Saturday into Sunday with the colder air sticking around behind the storm.  Winds should start to pick up again Sunday ahead of the next storm.

The next storm looks fairly weak with the precip amounts.  There is colder air in place so we should see snow levels start below lake level.  So the main difference with this storm is that it is at night and with colder air, so we should see better accumulations to lake level.  The latest model runs consolidate most of the precip to overnight Sunday night and tapering off by Monday morning.

Here is a look at the total precip forecast on the GFS by Monday.

Here is the updated forecast by Monday morning for the 2nd storm.

The total combined storm snowfall amounts could be similar to the total amounts from the last 2 storms earlier this week.  No big storms, but the 7 day amounts could be over 2 feet for some mountains.

High pressure begins to build in quickly by Tuesday.

That will bring drier and milder weather next week through at least Wednesday.

The GFS shows the next storm staying to the North for Wednesday night into Thursday, with milder air over the area.  The European model is digging the trough further South with some colder air and heavier precip.  We will have to watch the trend on this storm to see if we get a few more inches of snow and a colder shot of air by Thursday.

We should see high pressure build back in by next Friday into the first weekend of April.  The European model is trying to dig another storm far enough South for some colder air and precip around Sunday the 2nd.  

It looks like a better chance of seeing some more active weather could come the first week of April.  That is when there is better agreement on the ensemble runs of seeing the ridge break down and trough near the West Coast.

So the Spring storms every few days with light snowfall amounts for the mountains may continue into April.  We'll see...

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.