Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 3 years ago January 9, 2021

Sunny & Breezy

Summary

Mostly sunny & breezy. A prolonged dry pattern continues through next week becoming milder later in the week. The pattern may start to shift around the 20th.

Short Term Forecast

The weak system that moved through on Friday brought some rain & snow showers into the early afternoon before clearing. I took a few turns at Homewood and there was about half an inch of new snow on the upper mountain with snow showers. It made for some pretty views and soft turns.

homewood

I've been hearing some rumors that people think that we don't have any snow. We have seen 5 - 8.5 feet of snow so far at the ski resorts on top of snowmaking, and the temperatures have stayed fairly cold. Plus we are in low sun angle season. So we have snow, at least for now...

The Weekend:

High pressure begins to build in this weekend, but we still have an active storm track just to our north for a few more days. So you may see some clouds around even though we should see mostly sunny skies. The winds will turn northeast today with ridgetop gusts to 30+ mph. So it will be a little breezy, and with highs only in the 30s, it may be a little chilly, especially on the peaks.

Sunny skies expected for Sunday with temperatures for the lower elevations warming into the 40s. The winds turn southwest and we could see ridgetop gusts continuing to be 30+ mph. So a breezy weekend for the upper elevations.

The Upcoming Week:

We start with weaker high pressure through Tuesday with the storm track just to the north. Some model runs have a storm hitting the Pacific NW on Tuesday almost brushing us with a few showers.

euro

Tuesday is the best chance to be a little cooler, breezy, and to see some clouds. We will keep an eye on the track of that system to make sure we won't see any showers. 

Then starting Wednesday into next weekend the high-pressure ridge amplifies over the entire West Coast sending the storm track even farther north.

ridge

With the placement of the ridge, we should warm into the 50s at lake level for the 2nd half of the week. It's going to be tranquil and mild.

Extended Forecast

There are some signs that the ridge will slowly start to shift off the coast starting around the 17th-18th. That will likely still keep us dry, but may lower the high temperatures some. We should be mainly dry through at least the 19th.

dry

Fantasy Range:

The long-range models, for over a week now, have been in unison showing the ridge continuing to retrograde farther and farther west away from the West Coast as we go farther into January. Here is a look at the GFS ensemble mean model for the 24th. (the models are in z time so we lag by 8 hours)

gefs

If the forecasts are correct, as the ridge retrogrades we would start to see some colder air at first. Then the door opens to drier systems dropping down from the north. Eventually, if it shifts far enough West out near to south of the Aleutians, we would eventually start to see wetter systems move into the West Coast.

Here is a look at the GFS ensemble mean model through the 24th, showing some light precip possibly reaching the Sierra from dry systems dropping down from the north between the 20th-24th.

canadian

Looking at the extended range models, they show some wetter systems starting to move into CA starting around the 27th and into February. The map below shows the GFS ensemble control forecast for total precip through the 10th.

long range precip

Those aren't storm or official precip forecasts that far out. We don't look at storms until they are at least within the 7-day window. But the precip forecasts just confirm what should happen if the ridge shifts farther west off the coast. The farther west the more precip we should see. So let's hope the forecast for retrogression holds.

The teleconnection forecasts still show plenty of support for a pattern shift later in the month. The only wrench in the works has been and could be what happens with the splitting polar vortex through the month. We will keep an eye on that. 

Have a Great Weekend & Stay Tuned...BA

P.S. In addition to the Estimated Snow Depth, Current & Forecast Radar, Temperature Forecast, and Avalanche Forecast maps, we now have a Wind Gust map layer on OpenSnow!

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Announcements

The dry spell will give you time to listen to the new episodes of The Flakes Podcast. On this week's show we talked about: the long-range forecasts, the issues with ski resort snowfall reporting, we talked to the founder of Women of Patrol, & more! In next week's episode, we will likely try to talk you off the ledge...

Listen below via Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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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