Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 6 years ago January 10, 2018

5 Day Break, Then Real Winter?...

Summary

Cloudy today with a chance for lingering snow showers, and maybe a final coating up to an inch or two of snow on the mountains. Temperatures in the 30's on the mountains and 40's at lake level. Mountain top wind gusts to 40+ mph. Thursday we start to clear out and warm up with temperatures in the 40's. Wind gusts continue to 40+ mph on the mountain tops. For the weekend high pressure continues to build in. We will see sunny skies and high temperatures into the 40's on the upper mountains, and 50's down low and at lake level. Wind gusts to 40+ mph may continue on Friday on the mountain top, but should start to relax over the weekend. Next week we begin a pattern change towards wetter and eventually cold weather. We could see the first storm move in as early as Monday night. The forecast models don't agree on how much precipitation makes it into the area with this storm into Tuesday. We could just see light high elevation snow, or possibly some heavier snow with lowering snow levels. The next stronger storm may move in next Thursday into Friday. It may start wet with high snow levels and then colder air may work in as the jet stream sags South down the coast. That may be the start of a colder pattern with storms continuing that lasts through the week of the 22nd.

Short Term Forecast

Yesterday we saw temperatures jump pretty high during the day with a lull in heavier precipitation.  Snow levels jumped up above 9,000 feet.  During the evening some heavier showers moved through as some colder air finally moved in and snow levels fell to 7,000 feet. 

That is bringing in reports of a coating to another inch of snow above 8k on the ski resorts this morning.  Temperatures continued to fall overnight.  Snow levels are below 7,000 feet this morning.

temps

We are seeing snow falling on the mountains this morning as the final wave of precip is moving through. 

radar

Latest model runs have bumped up the precip with this final wave slightly.  We should see another dusting to an inch on the mountains this morning.  Maybe a few mountains along the crest squeeze out 2"?

light precip

Webcams show that it's a snowy morning, and wind sensors show that it's also windy with some gusts to 60 mph on the mountain tops.

squaw

The snow showers should clear out this afternoon and then we should start to see some sun on Thursday into Friday with highs into the 40's, but the winds could continue to be gusty.

Over the MLK weekend we will have high pressure building over the area with temperatures into the low 50's in the lower elevations.

So far this Winter we have had a lot of splitting troughs with a large scale trough not yet setting up and sitting in the Northeast Pacific and into the West Coast.  The splitting systems like yesterday's have the main trough with some colder air moving inland to our North, and a cut-off low spinning down the coast tapping into warm subtropical moisture that it pulls North into CA.  We have seen this a lot this Winter. 

Here is a drawing of the storm yesterday over the temperature anomaly map that shows how the cold air stayed to our North and cold air with the low went to our South.  That left the warm air over Central CA and Tahoe for the storm.

drawing

So it isn't that the storms don't have cold air, it's just not making into our area.  We are hoping that is going to change next week as a large area of low pressure and trough have been forecast for a couple weeks to setup in the Northeast Pacific.

We have a strong jet stream that is going to extend across the Pacific towards the West Coast on the bottom of the trough.  That should eventually push storms into CA.  They may start further North at the beginning of the week, and then as the trough and jet stream push further South and East into CA we should see more moisture and then colder air.

jet stream

For Monday night into Tuesday the European model has been very consistent on the first storm pushing in some heavier precipitation while the other models were not having the precip reach us with the first storm.  The Euro is still showing that this morning.

Euro wet

The rest of the models including the GFS have finally started to trend wetter for Monday night into Tuesday, but are still much drier with the first system falling apart by the time it reaches us.  The European solution is not only wetter but also a bit colder.  So we will watch the trend into tomorrow and try to come up with an initial snowfall forecast.

Extended Forecast

By next Thursday the trough is forecast to settle in over the West Coast.

thursday

There is better agreement on the forecast models that we see a wetter storm Thursday into Friday. 

gfs2

euro2

Initially as the moisture pushes in we may be on the South side of the jet stream with some warmer air, by going into Friday the jet stream may push South putting us on the colder side.  So this could be a heavy precip event with snow levels starting high and falling through the storm.  8 days out is too early for a specific forecast, but taking a sneak peak this morning the GFS starts snow levels around 7,000-7,500 feet.

We will continue to keep a close eye on that storm all week as it looks to be the next chance at significant snowfall.  We have been watching for this pattern to happen now for about 2 weeks.  Once we get into the 7 day window tomorrow for the storms next week you will probably start to hear a lot more hype around town as we get closer.  It is the first time we have a seen a pattern like this setup this Winter if it happens.

As the trough settles in after the storm next Friday we may see a colder pattern with much colder air finally settling in over the West.  If you see a January thaw hit the Eastern U.S. that is usually a good sign for us to finally get some cold. 

The ensemble runs continue to be in really good agreement on the pattern beyond 10 days.  They are showing the trough parking near/over the West Coast into the last week of January.

trough end of month

I'm about as confident in the storm door staying open into the week of the 22nd as I was about storms starting this week and the trough pushing in next week two weeks out.

Let's hope that Winter is finally showing up.  This wouldn't be the first time it waited until mid-January.

Stay tuned...BA

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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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