I'll try to keep this brief today as there is no change to the forecast from yesterday, and it's time to just sit back and watch what happens over the next 24 hours.  

The storm is moving in with a band of heavy precipitation already pushing through Northern CA.  That should arrive by late afternoon.

The forecast models have been consistent the past 24-48 hours with up to 1.25 inches of liquid along the crest by Friday evening when we clear out.  The only difference is how much moisture pushes to the East side of the lake, but that is their normal disagreement.  This storm has good forcing so I think there will be plenty of spillover to the East side.

The snow levels are sitting around 9000 feet this morning, but should be around 8000 feet by the time the precip arrives this afternoon.  The latest model runs have snow levels to 7000 feet by 7 p.m. and below lake level by 10 p.m.  Lots of cold air moving in with this front, so they should fall pretty fast this evening.

The one wildcard I still think is the showers tomorrow as the trough moves through.  If we can see some good bands of snow showers fire up we could see some bonus snows on top of what is on the ground in the morning.  For now here is the final forecast I will be using to grade myself on Saturday.  Pretty much the same as yesterday's forecast.

It is going to be cold all weekend and the snow that falls later tonight and Friday will be powdery.  So Friday and Saturday should be decent days to get fresh tracks.  The winds should fall off by tomorrow afternoon.  Highs this weekend behind the storm will only be in the 20's on the mountains and 30's at lake level with some sun Saturday and Sunday.

The next storm moves in Sunday night into Monday.  This storm had potetential to do big things as the front is trying to tap moisture from all the way back near Hawaii.  But high pressure is trying to build off the coast and as the front pushes South into CA Sunday night it looks like it falls apart and loses most of the moisture by the time it reaches us. 

We may only see a few inches of additional snowfall, and most of that may be confined to the West side of the lake along the crest.

After a break with some sun on Tuesday, it looks like we will see another cold storm move in Wednesday-Thursday.  The latest trend on this storm has been wetter, but we are still 6-7 days out.  For now I would just keep a note that we could see a similar storm to the one we have tonight.  We will get into more details after this storm is over.

It still looks like high pressure builds in along the West Coast the weekend of the 27th bringing a drier and milder weekend.  

The long-range ensemble runs show the the ridge backing away from the coast the week of the 29th.  The question is how far.  The latest runs keep it close enough that we may only see colder air and inside slider systems dropping down to our East.

Stay tuned...BA

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