A progressive pattern continues this week with troughs moving through, but the storms mainly stay to our north with a dusting of snow at best. Then we head into a drier pattern the first week of December.

We saw a system move through Sunday night that we thought could bring us a few flakes at best. A band of heavier snow held together and swept through bringing a quick shot of steady snow. That brought a dusting of snow to some areas.

The next trough swings through Wednesday.

Not a deep trough so the next system moves through to our north. Most of the forecast models show this system staying to our north with no precipitation reach the Tahoe Basin. The European model is the one that has been consistently showing us getting brushed with some snow showers on Wednesday.

We will continue to keep an eye on the track of this system. It could surprise us again like the system last night did, and bring us a dusting of snow. We will see ridgetop winds gusting to 30+ mph from the southwest Tuesday, increasing to 60+ mph Wednesday.

High pressure builds in over the region starting Thanksgiving day through the weekend. That will bring a drier and more tranquil pattern. Highs cool into the 30s at lake level Wed-Thu, 40s Friday then warming for the weekend to near 50 degrees. About 5-10 degrees cooler for the upper mountains.

The good news is that we have 7 ski areas open in CA/NV and 7 more planning to open this week. Starting with Boreal today. Cold nights this week will continue to allow for terrain expansion with snowmaking on top of the base building snow we saw with the last storm.

The long-range is still looking ugly this morning. The final trough moves through Monday the 30th with that system staying to our north as well. Then high-pressure looks to build in over the Western U.S. for the 1st week of December.

Looking at the two-week total precipitation forecast, you can see the heavy precip amounts for the Pacific NW and the chance for a dusting into northern CA week 1. The only increase through week 2 looks to be in the far northwest in Washington.

We continue to watch for any signs of a flip in the pattern in December. There are still some signs we could start to see a change around mid-month into the 3rd week of December. The long-range models hint at the PNA pattern possibly flipping from the positive phase (ridge) to a negative phase (trough) pattern.

That doesn't mean we won't see any storms before then. Storms could still sneak in over the next 3 weeks. It just means that the pattern looks to be unfavorable for an active pattern or any significant storms right now. We will continue to look for any signs of a change or a storm of significance. Pray for snow...

On the latest La Nina update today we saw cooling near the equator with the La Nina becoming a bit stronger again. We also continue to see the water cooling off the West coast. 

The MJO has weakened near the circle of death but should continue to loop around the globe over the next month. It likely won't be helping our pattern for at least a month until it loops back around. The jet stream is strengthening as we move into the winter season, so we will watch to see if storms can push south into northern CA sooner than later.

Stay tuned...BA

P.S. The first episode of the season from The Flakes Podcast is now live on your favorite podcast platforms. Enjoy!

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