The biggest change to the forecast since Wednesday is a wetter system possible now for Monday.  Other than that the forecast is pretty much the same.  We start off with clearing skies and sunny weather for today with highs warming into the 40's.

We did see a few snow showers yesterday with a dusting to an inch of snow that fell on the mountains.  Only Squaw and Northstar reported measurable snowfall on the upper mountain.

For Saturday we warm into the 50's with sunny skies as high pressure is over CA.

Weather Begins to Change Sunday:

Sunday we should see some sun and temperatures into the 50's at lake level.  But it won't be as nice as Friday and Saturday as the winds pick up and we could see some increasing clouds later in the day.  The highs on the upper mountains may cool into the 40's and we could see ridgetop wind gusts increase to 50+mph.

Sunday night a weak system moves through to our north.  We could see a few scattered showers but snow levels are above 8,000 feet.

Monday Storm:

By Monday a trough is digging into CA.

The Monday system has been trending farther south and wetter the last 2 days.  We will see winds continue to increase on Monday, likely closing some upper mountain lifts.  We could see rain and snown showers push in during the morning with snow levels starting around 7,500 feet.  Heavier precipitation is expected during the afternoon/evening as a cold front pushes through.  Snow levels lowering near lake level behind the front Monday evening.

Snow showers could linger through Monday night before we clear out on Tuesday.  The latest model runs are average up to 6 tenths of an inch of total precipitation near the crest.  The GFS & European models are the wettest with up to 9 tenths.

Here is the WPC blended model showing only up to 4 tenths...

and the GFS model showing up to 9 tenths.

Taking the GFS/Euro average here is the initial snowfall forecast for the storm.  I'd lean towards the lower end with the total model average being a bit less.

We will have to continue to watch the trend over the weekend to see if we could squeeze out a final fresh tracks day for Tuesday.

Return to Dry Weather:

High pressure will begin to build back in Tuesday through the end of next week.  That will bring back the sun and warming temperatures.  We should see highs into the 50's the 2nd half of the week, and maybe close to 60 at lake level by the end of the week?!

Looking at the long-range models, the GFS is suggesting the ridge weakens briefly the weekend of the 20th with a system digging into northern CA with a chance for rain & snow showers.  The European model keeps the storm track to our north.  I added a chance for a few inches of snow on the mountains on the ski resort pages due to the GFS.

The question seems to be will we see a brief hiccup in the dry and mild pattern next weekend, or will we see a prolonged dry period going through the last week of April?

Stay tuned...BA