It's a gloomy morning up here in the mountains.  I'm getting a rain shower here at the house as I type this.  It is nice to have some cool fall air and some moisture around!  

The forecast models are struggling as they usually do in the fall.  They have not been in agreement until we get within 24 hours of storms.  There is a good agreement today that light amounts of rain will fall across the area this afternoon.  Then for Thursday the European model has finally backed off and is bringing in a chance for light showers like the GFS.

Here is the updated total precip forecast.

The system for Saturday looks like it will mainly stay to our north and east.  We may just see some clouds and a reinforcement of the cooler air.  Highs will only be in the 50's at lake level into next week.

Still expecting a cold trough over the Western U.S. next week with snow for the Rockies.  There is still a question as to how far west the trough digs and the track of the storm for next Wednesday-Thursday.  If we have clear nights we should drop well below freezing at night with below average high temperatures continuing.

The 6z GFS model run this morning brought the system for Wednesday down closer to the coast with heavier precip for our area.  That is more in line with the track the European model runs had been showing.  The GFS then switched back to a more eastward track on the latest 12z run.  This will likely be the game we play again for a week leading up to the storm.

Here is a look at the 6z run (top) vs 12z run (bottom) for total precipitation by next Thursday.

With the pattern of the ridge in the northeast Pacific and trough over the West, we get these storms dropping from North to South into the Great Basin.  If you have followed along for a while you know a slight adjustment to the track of these storms can make a big difference between wet and totally dry.  

I don't want to hang on every model run.  The pattern is set up for these inside slider type systems for the next week.  One brushing us tomorrow, one Saturday, and one next Wednesday.  The reason the one next Wednesday is so interesting is that the snow levels could be below lake level. 

So we will just continue to watch the trends each day.  It would be nice to see the snow guns get fired up and have a little natural snow as well, to get excited about the season.

Yesterday I mentioned that the mid-month pattern that I posted looked similar to the pattern I thought we could see a lot this Winter.  Then this morning I noticed this forecast for the Winter from the ECMWF model that is very similar to that forecast.

So we will have to see if the jet stream will take aim at CA this Winter between the ridges to the North and South.  Weatherbell developed the Pioneer model they use for seasonal forecasting.  I noticed yesterday that their precip forecast for CA this winter is very similar to the Accuweather forecast I posted last week.  With above average precip during December-January.

The weather is already active to start this month.  Hopefully, that continues into November and then we do see it pick up going into December when it counts.  

Stay tuned...BA