Tahoe Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest Tahoe Daily Snow

By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 6 years ago March 24, 2018

Windy & Cold with Some Snow...

Summary

Windy and cold today (Saturday) with highs in the 20's on the mountains and 30's at lake level. That cold air will remain in place through Monday. Ridge top winds up to 80 mph today decreasing to 40 mph for Sunday and lower for Monday. Some peaks of sun today but snow showers firing up from time to time with 1-4 inches of snow possible on the mountains. Tonight snow showers continue with another 1-4 inches possible. Sunday we could see scattered snow showers but mainly scattered clouds with some sun. Then for Monday mostly sunny. Tuesday through next weekend high pressure builds in with lots of sun and a warming trend. We could see highs into the 30's on the mountains and 40's at lake level Tuesday, 40's & 50's for Wednesday, and then 50's into next weekend and possibly the 60's at lake level. The week of the 2nd we could see a cold trough from the North bring some cooler temperatures. We could see some unsettled weather around the 5th-8th of April.

Short Term Forecast

The front took forever to reach the Tahoe basin overnight.  It arrived around 5 a.m. NW of the lake and is pushing South.  The band of snow associated with it has been falling apart as it moves through as you can see on radar.

radar

This was always expected to be a light snowfall event.  The forecast I had for last night was 0-1 inches of snow on the East side of the lake and 1-3 on the West side.  The front was expected to bring snow a little earlier.

It was snowing, just starting to snow, or not snowing yet depending on how early the ski resorts measure on the North side of the lake.  You can see below on the reports 0-4 inches, with the earliest measuring mountain Sugar Bowl with 0 and the latest measuring mountain Boreal with 4 inches, as the band moved through dropping a quick few inches between the two measuring.  South Lake the snow is just starting and hadn't pushed in yet as of measuring time.

reports

You can see the fluffy snow piling up and blowing around on the Sugar Bowl boot cam.

boot cam

It is windy this morning with mountain top sensors still showing gusts to 80 mph, which is causing lift closures on the upper mountains.  That will continue as the final wave rotates towards us.  We should see some peaks of sun today, but also snow showers continuing to fire up over the area, especially West of the lake along the crest.  The warm March sun this time of year can help to fire up the snow showers in these cold unstable air masses.  We could see 1-4 inches of snow on the mountains.

The final wave rotating towards us looks impressive on satellite this morning.  A few days ago it looked like it could drop over a foot of snow tonight.  The trend the last few days has been for it to weaken and fall apart as it moves inland tonight.

satellite

The latest 12z model runs of the GFS, NAM, and WPC models have up to 7 tenths of an inch of additional liquid along the crest by Sunday morning. 

wpc

The 12z Euro hasn't finished loading yet but only had up to 4 tenths on last nights run.  That is dragging down the forecast using the average.  It looks like my lower forecast I put out yesterday will be right.  Up to 9 additional inches of snow possible along the crest by Sunday.  Yesterday I had up to 12 which included 3 last night, so the forecast hasn't really changed. 

forecast

That is down from 4 days ago when I put out the 5 day storm forecast, so the total storm forecast won't verify.  The first half of the storm with up to 3 feet did, but we will come up at least a foot less for this 2nd half.  Highest totals for the crest likely to end up between 3-4 feet.

Scattered snow showers possible Sunday adding a dusting to an inch, but we should have some sun too.  The wind gusts should finally drop a bit down to 40 mph on the ridges and lowering through the day.  That will be nice because today it is a snow globe with high winds and light powdery snow blowing around.  It stays cold Monday with sun and light winds.

Extended Forecast

Tuesday through next weekend high pressure building in along the West Coast.  That will bring a warming trend that will have highs into the 50's on the mountains and 60's at lake level by the end of the week.  The March cold and stormy weather is officially over starting Monday.

ridge

Will we get more storms in April?  The week of the 2nd the models are still showing the ridge moving out near the Aleutian Islands.

trough

That may allow a trough with colder air to settle into the West that week.  It will also open the storm door, but in April the jet stream is weakening and retreating North.  The GFS continues to show the chance for light snow as the cold trough pushes in that week.  It also keeps hinting at a chance for a stronger storm around the 5th-8th.

Looking at the MJO (madden julian oscillation) forecast, the activity is forecast to wake up from the dead in the circle of death this week.  Then move around the globe towards the Indian Ocean over the next 2 weeks.  We will have to watch to see if that has an effect on the pattern going through April.

mjo

The ski resorts have projected closing dates starting April 8th and running through April 29th, except for Squaw reporting they will stay open as late as possible.  They are shooting for Memorial Day.  But we do have a majority of mountains closing in April.  So we will have to see if we can squeeze out another powder day or two before then.

Stay tuned...BA

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.

Free OpenSnow App