Tahoe Daily Snow
By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 6 years ago December 2, 2017
Get It While It's Cold...
Summary
Today will be slightly cooler with highs topping out around 40 on the mountains. As the next storm approaches winds will continue to increase, with upper mtn gusts to 60 mph. Tonight a cold front moves through with light snow associated with it. The snow should taper off by Sunday morning with clearing skies on Sunday. Much colder air will be behind the front with highs only in the 30's for Sunday. Winds could still be gusty Sunday with gusts to 40 mph on the mountain tops. Total snowfall by Sunday morning could be 1-6 inches on the mountains, with the higher amounts West of the lake along the crest. This should be a cold dry powder to add a quick refresh to the slopes. We could see 1-4 inches at lake level as well. We start cold on Monday with highs similar to Sunday. Tuesday we begin to warmup back into the 40's for the rest of the week. At night we should see inversions with lows in the teens at the base and 20's on the mountain. The weather should be sunny all week as high pressure builds in bringing a drier pattern into the weekend of the 9th. Right now we don't see an end to the dry pattern through mid-December. There are some signs the ridge may weaken mid-month which may allow some storms to push in.
Short Term Forecast
Update 3 P.M.
Latest model simulations are slowing the system down tonight. Possibly holding off the snow until after 10 p.m.
From This Morning:
Only minor adjustments to the forecast this morning, but some good ones.
This storm has been a real pain to forecast. We normally wouldn't stress over the difference of a couple inches here in Tahoe. But with this being our first cold storm and the 2 week dry spell after, we are over analyzing the potential snowfall for tonight.
This system is drawing in some Pacific moisture but that will cut off as the storm pushes inland. That should limit the amount of moisture this storm has as we catch the bottom edge. The forecast models have trended wetter again the past 24 hours, with amounts similar to 2 days ago.
The snow may begin to fall NW of the lake near the crest later this afternoon, and then spread across the Tahoe basin this evening. The light snow should taper off Sunday morning. There is some pretty cold air with this storm which will keep snow levels below lake level just after the start, and will bring high snow ratios to the mountains. That should mean some nice powdery snow for Sunday.
The latest model runs of the GFS and European models bring up to 4-5 tenths of an inch of liquid West of the lake along the crest. More specifically NW of the lake near Donner Summit.
So we are expecting the best chance for the highest snowfall amounts to be NW of the lake, with amounts fading as you go South and East across the area. The cold air should allow this storm to squeeze a decent shot of snow out of the limited moisture.
Here is the updated snowfall forecast based on the GFS and European average. I would caution that the rest of the forecast models this morning max out around 3 tenths of an inch along the crest, so I would lean towards the low end of the forecast.
This is an interesting storm and it will be fun to live forecast this tonight on the TahoeWeather social channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). I am liking this new Kuchera ratio snowfall forecast map as well that is using the snow ratios by elevation to forecast the mountain snowfall. Seems to line up well with my forecast.
I guess now we will see what we have in the morning!
After this storm it is breezy tomorrow with some strong gusts still up top. It will also be very cold with highs in the 20's on the mountains and wind chills even colder.
We stay cold into Monday and then warm-up Tuesday into next weekend back into seasonal averages with highs in the 40's and lows in the 20's.
No change to the dry forecast through next weekend as the ridge takes over the West blocking storms.
Extended Forecast
The only sign of hope I'm seeing is the weakening ridge on the ensemble forecasts beyond mid-month. The latest 12z GFS is the first model run to show a few storms breaking into the West Coast starting around the 15th. We need to see a lot more model runs of that before we get excited.
For now we are expecting the cold and snow to be in the East starting this week through mid-month. So get out and enjoy the fresh snow tomorrow, even if it is only an inch or two.
Stay tuned...BA
P.S. Sierra at Tahoe did open last minute. Today is opening day!
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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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