Update 7:30 a.m.:

Here are the reported totals as of 7 a.m.  Less snow has been making it to the East side of the lake overnight as expected.  The ski resorts measure between 5 - 7 a.m.  You can see the higher totals on the mountains that measure later in the morning as the snow piles up.  Boreal is usually one of the last to report and they are up to 12 inches so far.

So far the storm is on track with the forecast.  See the discussion below.  A reminder that we won't see 3-5 feet during the day today.  It's a foot+ today (thursday), 1-2 feet tonight, several inches Friday, up to a foot Friday night and a few inches Saturday.  That is how we add up to the total forecast.  We won't know the totals to compare to the forecast until 3 days from now on Sunday morning.

Wind gusts are up to 90 mph in the past hour on the mountain tops. 

From 4 a.m.:

It's 4 a.m. on Thursday morning.  Getting the post out early so I can go up on the mountains and shoot live updates on the TahoeWeather Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram during the storm today and tonight.  This lines up better with the 12 hour periods of the forecast models as well.

Overnight we saw snow falling along the crest, spilling over at times into the Tahoe basin.  But overall the heaviest snowfall through 4 a.m. has been confined to West of the lake along the crest.  So I'm expecting lighter snowfall reports East of that this morning.

Going forward now from 4 a.m. into this morning there will be more forcing as the jet stream shifts South and the cold front approaches.  So the heavier snowfall will start to spread over the entire area.  A second wave of moisture is right on the heels of the first.  The forecast models show the wettest period being later this afternoon into tonight with the end of the first band and the arrival of the 2nd.

That will also combine with much colder temperatures tonight with higher snowfall ratios.  So while we could see a foot of snow today on the mountains.  We could see 2 feet tonight.  We are still expected lighter snowfall for Friday before the 3rd wave of heavier precip moves in Friday night.  The models are a little wetter for Friday on the latest runs, but still only expecting several more inches, not feet.  Then Friday night into Saturday morning we could see another foot of snow on the mountains.

The forecast model runs in the past 24 hours trended wetter with this storm.  Some have backed off a little like the Canadian model.  But the NAM and European models still shop up to 4 more inches of liquid along the crest starting at 4 a.m. this morning.  So that is on top of what fell last night.  Here is a look at the 0z Euro last night showing up to 4.5 inches, .5 of that for last night.

The GFS/Euro model average is at 3.8 inches for the rest of this storm starting at 4 a.m. this morning.  The average of the rest of the models is closer to 3.5 inches.  The GFS is around 3.4 inches on the high end,  and the Euro around 4.2 inches.  The GFS is drier with round 2 and round 3 than the European model, but wetter for Saturday.  Snowfall amounts for Saturday look very light, with most snow showers confined to the crest.

With the slightly wetter model runs, and with the storm just getting started early this morning.  The snowfall forecast for the rest of the storm starting at 4 a.m. on top of what fell before 4 a.m., is the same as yesterday's forecast for the entire storm.

All we can do now is just watch what happens over the next 48 hours.  I will have the snowfall reports added in up top of the post later this morning when the 6 a.m. reports come in.

Still expecting a break Sunday to Tuesday.  Another storm is slowly moving towards the coast next week.  It could hit sometime between Wednesday-Friday.  It could have a decent amount of moisture with snow levels starting around 8,000 feet and falling during the storm.  We will look at that more closely after we wrap this storm up on Saturday.

Stay tuned...BA