We have rain and snow falling this morning across the Tahoe Basin. The biggest change to the storm is that the arrival of the colder air and heaviest precipitation with the cold front slowed its arrival overnight. We saw some showers start to push in around 11 PM last night, but the band of heavy precip with the front didn't start to push in NW of the lake until around 4 AM.

The snow levels were still around 8000 ft. at 3 AM ahead of the front. By 5 AM the snow levels had fallen to around 7000 ft. on the north side of the lake with snow and chain controls over Donner Summit. As of writing this at 6 AM, some big wet flakes were mixing in at the base of Squaw.

The radar isn't picking it up well, but it's snowing steadily to the east side of the lake to the base of Mt. Rose this morning.

The south side of the lake was just starting to get the steady precip at 5 AM with snow levels running 500-1000 ft. higher as the colder air is just starting to work in down there. You can see the temperatures start to drop at Alpine around 4 AM and continuing early this morning.

The ski areas on the west side of the lake that measure above 7500' are reporting 1-3 inches as of 5 AM and 1-2 inches on the east side so far. Most of the snow falls this morning after 5 AM so we will have totals Monday morning. The snow will also start to accumulate on the lower resorts this morning.

Squaw will be the first to break 200" for the season today as they are only 2 inches short this morning. As a comparison to last season, they broke 200" on 1/17. So we are only 9 days behind. But of course last season the big snows started now through February.

Sunday:

Snow levels will drop close to lake level through the morning. The latest model runs have them in the 6000-6500 ft. range. So we will have to see if we get any accumulations at lake level. Winds are gusting to 60+ mph on the ridges this morning. They are expected to drop off to around 35+ mph through the day. Highs in the 30s.

There wasn't much change to the precipitation forecasts so I don't have changes to the final snowfall forecast from yesterday, other than to delay the accumulations into Sunday morning. The steady precip will end by late morning, with scattered snow showers possible up along the crest into the afternoon. The other small change is pushing some of the higher precip amounts south to Mammoth, with some models now showing up to 6 inches down there.

Monday - Tuesday:

Expecting mostly sunny skies for Monday and mostly cloudy for Tuesday. Highs in the 30s for the upper elevations and 40s at lake level. Lighter winds expected. The weak system moving through just to the north on Tuesday could still brush us with a few scattered showers. Snow levels should be around 7000 ft. through most of the day.

Wednesday - Saturday:

Starting Wednesday a strong area of high pressure builds in over CA. I've been trying to come up with a name for it. Ridgimus Maximus? It's a bulletproof ridge so we will have sunny skies and temperatures warm into the 40s Wednesday and 50s Thursday through Saturday. Maybe even touching 60 at lake level Saturday? It will feel like Spring.

The long-range models are still showing a pattern change for next Sunday-Monday as the ridge shifts east and a trough digs into the West.

That should drop the high temperatures as colder air pushes south into the CA. It's still up in the air as to whether or not we could see a few snow showers with a cold front next Sunday. But if we do it would likely be a dusting and nothing to get excited about. Likely a dry pattern still but colder going into the week of the 3rd.

Fantasy Range:

The ridge off the coast may shift closer to the West Coast briefly the week of the 3rd. That will just help to keep us in a dry pattern and possibly slightly warmer, but not as warm as this week as the high is forecast to stay centered off the coast.

Then going into the 2nd week of February the long-range models continue to agree that we could see the ridge shift away from the coast with a cold trough for the West.

If retrogression of the ridge continues the week of the 10th it could finally open up the door to storms dropping into CA. The GFS models is becoming more aggressive with a forecast for the active phase of the MJO to move into the Indian Ocean week 2.

Those are colder and wetter phases typically for CA in February.

This is 2+ weeks out so don't hold me to it. But this is what we are watching for over the next 2 weeks. Hopefully, it won't be long before the storms return...

Stay tuned...BA

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