Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 2 years ago June 23, 2021

Cooler, Thunderstorms, & Another Heatwave...

Summary

We have a quick cool down with a chance for afternoon thunderstorms Wed - Fri. Then another heatwave is on tap by the weekend.

Update

We have low pressure sitting along the coast through Friday, but weakening by Friday.

trough

That is bringing a cooldown with highs dropping into the 70s at the lake and 60s for the upper mountains, with 50s for the highest elevations. Afternoon southwest winds will be on the lighter side for Wednesday with gusts only expected to be 15-20+ mph. Then lighter east winds expected for Thu-Fri.

Possible Thunderstorms:

With the low drawing up some moisture Wednesday - Friday we may see a few afternoon thunderstorms pop up around the region. The chances look to be pretty low for Wednesday and Friday with isolated storms to dry storms possible. The bad news is the increasing fire danger with the dry weather and the moisture-starved thunderstorms could cause some lighting that could spark fires.

You can see the hourly lightning forecast on OpenSummit, as well as our new lightning maps!

lightning

The best chance for thunderstorms looks to be Thursday afternoon. You can see the increased rain and lightning chances above. The 7-day total precipitation maps show light precipitation amounts over the Sierra from the possible thunderstorms.

precip

Weekend Heat Wave Return:

The area of low pressure along the West Coast weakens by the end of the week as strong high pressure builds in over the West.

ridge

That will bring another warm-up with highs into the 80s at lake level through the weekend and into early next week, maybe even 90 degrees for some spots! This will be a hot and dry pattern with highs near 100 in Reno and no chances to cool down outdoors during the day unless you go for a swim or hike the high elevations.

The weekend looks dry but a chance for afternoon thunderstorms could return early next week as monsoon moisture begins to work its way northward.

The long-range forecast models show the ridge possibly shifting off the West Coast with time which may at least ease the heatwave some.

I will now be posting weekly updates on Wednesdays throughout the rest of the summer. Be sure to be using OpenSummit for your summer mountain weather. It is especially helpful with the colder temperatures and stronger winds normally seen when hiking the higher elevations.

We have lots of new location points and map overlays including smoke and lightning maps, as well as offline maps when you're out of range. We will be adding more features throughout the summer!

Stay tuned...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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