Still not much change to the entire forecast over the last several days.  We have two different weather patterns for the weekend.  A sunny and mild one today into Saturday, and then a cold and somewhat snowy one Sunday into Monday.

I would expect ski lift issues on Sunday with the strong winds moving in ahead of the cold front.  This storm is moving South over land so it doesn't have much moisture to work with.  But it can find ways to squeeze out a little snow.  The GFS model runs continue to show the trough dropping down a bit East of what the European model is showing.  That is an even drier track.  It still shows only enough moisture for 1-3 inches of snow at best by Monday.

The forecast models have been consistent over the past, but also consistent with their disagreement.  The European model continues to shows a slight shift West of the trough with slightly more moisture.

These cold storms dropping in from the North usually bring light amounts of snow, but they are tend to setup a snow band that hits some mountains harder than others.  Remember the last storm where some mountains only had a dusting and others up to 6 inches of snowfall.  I bumped the forecast up to 2-5 inches across the basin by Monday to cover both models.  It's going to be very cold for Monday.

There could also be the wildcard of lake effect snow, which we have seen a couple times the past month with these cold storms.  The bigger the difference in temperature between the air and the lake, the stronger the wind, and the longer the fetch across the water, the heavier the snowfall potential.  After a mild winter so far the lake water is fairly warm and this could be the coldest air of the season Monday.  We will have a NW to NE wind direction, so we will keep an eye on the South shore of the lake Monday.  We had a lake effect band drop a foot on Heavenly last month.

For next week we are on the Western edge of a Western U.S. trough.  Cold storms will continue to drop into the Rockies but should miss us.  But it will keep us in a cold flow with highs possibly only warming into the 30's Wednesday into the weekend of the 24th.

We have been patiently waiting for a few weeks now for a bigger storm.  We will have waited over a month by the time we get the next significant storm.  We have been watching the last few days of the month into the first week of March for the next chance of a stronger storm.

The ensemble mean runs on the GFS and European models continue to show retrogression of the Eastern Pacific ridge westward towards 160w the week of the 26th.  That is a better position for these cold storms to drop down further West off the coast to grab more moisture off the Pacific before moving into CA.  

The ensemble mean runs do show increased chances for heavier precipitation that week.

We just have to continue to be patient and wait.  Looking at the operational model runs the GFS and European model runs do have a stronger storm moving in around Monday the 26th.  The European model continues the cold and wetter storms after that.  The GFS moves the ridge back closer to the coast on the latest runs, but that doesn't line up with its ensemble runs.  So we will continue to look at the week of the 26th as the next possible chance for a significant snowfall.

Stay tuned...BA