Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 11 years ago February 19, 2013

Update 7 PM:

Measured 4 inches in Olympic Valley leaving work this evening.  Visibly less snow once you got to Truckee but then I measured 6 inches here at the house at the top of Tahoe Donner when I got home.  That leads me to believe there is 6+ inches at the top of the mountains from Boreal down to Homewood.  Heavier snow was sitting down South from Sierra at Tahoe to Kirwood this afternoon so they may have done better.

The track of the low as it was coming into CA tracked further West today.  The wind direction is turned more and more South as the low moved South.  The wind in that direction has a hard time pushing the moisture over the crest.   This was the fear with this storm but the forecast models continued to pump out at least .25-.5 inches of liquid in the Basin which should have been at least 3-6 inches of snow.  Our bad luck streak is continuing...

From This Morning:

A coating up to 2 inches being reported by the ski resorts this morning from the dry cold front that moved through overnight.  That was right in line with what we were thinking.  The main low pressure center is moving South into Northern CA this morning and headed our way.

The snow will pick back up later this morning with the heaviest snow expected later this afternoon into the evening.  Snow showers will linger through the night.  Still a big difference between the GFS and ECMWF model runs on the amount of spillover into the Tahoe Basin.  The Euro has been consistent all week and so have I since I've been basing the forecast off of it. 

Going to stick with the snowfall forecast from yesterday which is the same since last Thursday.  4-8 inches East side, 8-12 West side, 6-12 on the mountains East of the crest, and 12-18 along the crest West of the lake.  Let's see where we land tomorrow morning.

The next wave for Thursday is looking even more moisture starved than ever.  We may see some clouds and a flake. 

The next wave drops down on Saturday.  The GFS and GEM models keep most of the precip to our North and East with the low sliding down through NV.  The ECMWF and JMA bring in a nice shot of snow with the cold front, dropping several inches on the mountains.

Next week the ridge retrogrades slightly in the Pacific.  The GEM brings the next system for Tuesday the furthest South with a nice shot of snow.  The Euro is weaker with the system, and the GFS keeps it just to our North.  The inconsistency continues with the final system next Thursday.  The GEM & GFS bring in one last shot of snow while the Euro gets a head start on building the ridge over the West and keeps it to our North.

There is agreement that a large ridge builds over the Western U.S. in a classic +PNA -NAO pattern of a ridge in the West and trough in the East for the first week of March.  The trough in the Pacific sits off shore with the jet stream aimed at the Pacific NW and then shifts North into Canada.  There are some hints that the pattern shifts back by the second week of March. 

March will be a critical month for snowfall as we will need to get some big storms if we want to have a shot at having an average snowfall year.  The thinking is that Winter will snap in the East in March and then could get stuck in the West into April.  We'll see... 

For now enjoy all the fresh snow this week!  BA

Tahoe Truckee Radio

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.

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