Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 10 years ago January 16, 2014

Summary:

The ridge continues to be stuck along the West Coast through the next week keeping us dry.  It begins to move towards Alaska week 2 allowing a chance for a system or two before the end of the month.

Details:

In the short term all we can do is continue to sit and wait for the pattern to change.  Here is the NWS map they put out yesterday showing why it is so dry.  They didn't have much explanation beyond the warm water in the Northeast Pacific causing the ridge to its East along the West Coast.  This was actually expected this Winter but further North over Canada with the hope the Westerlies would cut underneath into CA more often.  That hasn't happened yet.

NWS discussion

Long Range:

I'm not sure if your hearts can bear the models forecasting another pattern change.  They forecasted a change for the 7th-11th of January back in December.  They were right but all we ended up getting was a couple of dustings and a few inches on the mountains.  The GFS did show the jet punching through the ridge into CA next week, but we never really bought that.  Now a majority of the forecast models are showing a pattern change week 2.

A pattern change means a different setup than what we currently have, and usually on that is more favorable for storms.  But it doesn't always mean big storms, that we have to wait and see as we get closer.  What is nice to see is that the models are all moving the strong ridge along the West coast to a position near the Aleutian Islands by the end of the month.  That should make it easier for storms to make it into the West Coast.

I don't need to show all the models as they are similar.  Here is the Canadian at the end of the month.

Canadian 

The CFS sees the same pattern and has the precip above average the last few days of Jan into the first 2 weeks of February.

CFS 2 week precip

For the rest of January the CFS precip looks like this.  First the next 10 days with lots of dry weather over the West....

cfs 10 day precip

Then the last few days of the month when we may get a weak system or two as the pattern begins to change.

CFS end of January

The change in the pattern is forecasted to begin about 10 days from now and is leaving the fantasy land time frame.  With most of the forecast models showing a shift in the pattern confidence is growing.  The question is what does that mean for our weather?  The weak storms at the end of the month are 2 weeks out and in fantasy land still.  The models are actually all over the place with the last few days of the month.  That is usually what happens when there is a change in the pattern.  The CFS forecast for the first 2 weeks of February is way out in fantasy land, but it shows what could happen if the pattern shifts to a ridge over the Aleutians and a trough trying to build into the West.

Stay tuned and take an aspirin for your heart and head....BA

 

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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