Southern California Daily Snow

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By Mike Korotkin, Meteorologist Posted 1 year ago March 26, 2023

Sunny to Snowy

Summary

Sunny weather between Sunday and Tuesday will turn snowy by Wednesday & Thursday. Classic springtime weather where we have days of beautiful sunshine sprinkled in with a snowstorm in between. Temps will remain cooler through all of next week. The first week of April looks mostly drier.

Short Term Forecast

Sunday - Tuesday Sun

We're expecting sunny skies through Tuesday. Temps will be in the mid to upper 30's. Tuesday will be the warmest day with upper 30's expected ahead of the next system. 

Winds will be a little gusty today on Sunday out of the Northwest on the exposed ridges. You can expect gusts up to 30 MPH. Monday will be calmer while on Tuesday we'll see gusts pick back up out of the Southwest ahead of the storm. 40 - 50 MPH gusts are likely by the afternoon when we could see clouds start rolling ahead of the system. 

Most of the models show the precip starting in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. At this time I'm not expecting much accumulation to occur by the Wednesday morning reports. 

Wednesday Snow & Thursday Snow Showers 

The models have been showing this storm for quite some time now. It's still expected to make a more direct impact to the Northern part of the state. But there's enough moisture and instability that will make it's way down to us that will give us a fun couple days of colder powder.

Temps will be much colder on Wednesday with low 30's expected. Thursday is expected to be even colder with temps in the 20's. This is a cold system that will have snow levels dropping below the bases of all resorts by likely Wednesday morning. 

Winds will be gusty on Wednesday and up to 50 MPH on the most exposed ridges out of the Southwest. Thursday winds should calm down significantly into the 15 - 25 MPH range.

Precip Forecast 

GFS

Euro

WPC

Above I show you the GFS, Euro & WPC models for the precip through Thursday night. The main part of this system should arrive on Wednesday morning. A lull could happen Wednesday with more snow showers expected Thursday morning. 

The GFS is the driest model overall. the Euro is favoring the Ventura County Mtns, while the WPC model shows a pretty evenly distributed band of heavier precip in the mtns, and specifically favoring the San Gabriel's Mt. Baldy region. The average is around an inch of liquid in the San Gabriel's and closer to 0.80 inches in the Big Bear Mtns. 

Snowfall Forecast

This system is still quite a few days out and it's Spring. That means that these details can and sometimes radically change in the span of just a couple days. So this will be my first best estimate for snowfall amounts given the dynamic nature of Spring. 

The Mt. Baldy region could see upwards of 10 inches. The Mtn. High region could get 6 - 8 inches and the Big Bear resorts could see 4 - 8 inches of snow, with the highest amounts expected at Snow Valley. I'll update this the next few days as we get closer. This is the 3 day totals between Tuesday night and Friday morning. 

Extended Forecast

The models haven't changed much in the long range outlook going into the 1st week of April. The first weekend should be mostly dry with warmer temps. 

There's still chances we could see very light precip the first week of April, but the odds are greater that we see drier weather overall. 

The GFS Ensemble Mean shows below average to average precip, which for this time of year doesn't mean much other than mostly drier weather. 

I'll keep you posted on how our weather evolves as we get into the heart of Spring in April. 

Till the next one... Mike out. 

About Our Forecaster

Mike Korotkin

Meteorologist

Mike graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s in Atmospheric Science and received his Masters in Atmospheric Science at the University of Nevada Reno. He grew up in Southern California by the beach, but quickly realized he loved the mountains, so his first memories were of the SoCal mountains where he saw snow for the first time. He started skiing in his 20’s and is now an avid skier and backpacker at locations up and down the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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