Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 2 years ago November 17, 2021

Relying on Snowmaking...

Summary

Dry Wednesday into Thursday with increasing winds Thursday. Chance for a few rain & snow showers Thursday night into Friday. Dry again starting Saturday, and that could last through Thanksgiving weekend.

Short Term Forecast

Good Morning. I'm back in the saddle this morning after taking family leave for a family emergency back east.

Mom is stable this morning after we thought we might lose her last week. That's the good news. The bad news for years has been she's terminal and not living a happy life with her condition. Thank you for all of the well wishes. It was a hard week but a good week. I'm thankful for the time I was able to spend with her and I came to peace with the fact that she will finally be at peace when she moves on.

Another one of the not-fun parts of the trip was the high winds coming over the western mountains from the cold front yesterday. Lots of bouncing around in the air on small planes. Unfortunately, the colder air moving into the West this week didn't bring much in the way of snowfall. Right now a lot of ski areas are relying on snowmaking to get open. Here is an article about it from Ski Magazine.

Warm Temps Delay Resort Openings in the West - Ski Mag

We like to keep it real with you. The delay in snowmaking and lack of natural snow has delayed potential opening dates for this upcoming weekend. Even with the colder air, we are still seeing inversions at night with the lighter winds. This morning it was 26 degrees at the base of Palisades Tahoe and 29 at the top. Luckily cold enough for snowmaking on most of the mountain overnight with the colder air.

We will need lots of cloud-free cold nights in order to get a boost in snowmaking, and some wind can help to mix out the inversions...

The Forecast:

Wednesday we will see mostly sunny skies as the high-pressure ridge over the region responsible for the dry weather begins to shift east. Highs in the 40s with a cool and light east wind.

Thursday into Friday we will see a weak trough move through the region.

trough 1

A weak system will approach the Pacific NW Thursday and move east Friday. We will see increasing winds Thursday and clouds by afternoon. Ridgetop winds from the southwest gusting up to 60+ mph by afternoon. Highs around 50 degrees at lake level and 40s for the upper mountains.

Some forecast models show light precipitation reaching the Sierra Crest northwest of the lake by Thursday evening. Here is a look at our forecast radar for 8 PM Thursday.

forecast radar

Scattered showers are possible through Thursday night and Friday. Snow levels look to start up around 9000 ft. and could fall to around 7500 ft. Thursday night, and then maybe as low as 7000 feet by Friday morning if we see any heavier showers that could help to drag snow levels a bit lower. Keep an eye out over Donner Summit early Friday morning.

Overall not expecting much precipitation in total and most may stay confined to the west of the lake along the crest. Barely enough for a coating of snow for the upper elevations. Friday should be a cool, windy, and cloudy day with a few scattered showers possible. Highs in the 40s at lake level and 30s for the upper mountains. Ridgetop winds gusting from the southwest up to 70+ mph most of the day.

Here is a look at the total precipitation forecast through Friday on the ICON model, close to the total model average. You can see not much moisture reaching or spilling into the Tahoe Basin.

icon

Overnight lows will not be cold enough for snowmaking with the cloud cover and with moist air there won't be the evaporational cooling available that we see on dry nights.

The Weekend:

Most of the forecast models end any chance of showers by Friday evening. Then clearing for Saturday with mostly sunny skies and highs in the 40s for the lower elevations and 30s for the higher elevations. The winds will drop off with a light east wind by afternoon.

Sunday we should see another dry day as high pressure builds over the region. Highs could reach 50 degrees again at lake level. Overnight lows in the 20s and inversions are possible again with the lighter winds, but it should be cold enough for most of the mountain terrain for snowmaking, and the drier air will help as well.

Extended Forecast

Monday could be the warmest day with highs in the 50s at lake level and 40s for the upper mountains. The dry pattern continues but the ridge over the region begins to shift.

By Tuesday we could see another weak trough move through the West.

trough 2

An area of low pressure off of the southern CA coast could eject inland towards the base of the trough to the northeast. There is a slight chance of scattered showers for the Sierra Tuesday as the low moves inland, but the latest model runs are pretty dry. We will see a cool down with highs back into the 40s at lake level and 30s for the higher elevations.

By next Wednesday the next high-pressure ridge is building back in over CA bringing us another dry pattern through at least Thanksgiving.

ridge 2

As of right now, we are expecting temperatures not to warm significantly through this period. So we may still see nights cold enough for snowmaking. It's impossible for us to forecast how much snow ski resorts can make each night and when they could open. You will have to stay tuned to their websites and social media for the latest updates, but I'll try to keep you updated as well.

Fantasy Range:

With the PNA (Pacific North American) teleconnection going positive next week and the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) going negative, that is a warm West cold East linkage most of the time. You can see the strong ridge in the image above up near Greenland with the cold trough underneath over the eastern U.S. The cold air pattern could be a bit stronger with the 30 day lag from the stratospheric warming event from last month. A cold Thanksgiving for the East.

We will need that pattern to shift if we want our pattern to shift. The teleconnection forecasts on the GFS, European & Canadian ensemble mean models show the negative NAO pattern starting to break down by the end of the month, but they differ on what happens with the PNA pattern. The GFS ensembles suggest the PNA pattern flips as well and that we could see a West coast trough the last few days of the month.

trough 3

That could bring a wetter pattern back to northern CA...

gefs long range precip

... but don't get excited just yet. The Canadian and European models suggest the positive PNA pattern continues through the end of the month and they show the ridge still over the West Coast.

euro ridge

That would continue the dry pattern. The precip below for our area on the forecast through the end of the month is from this Thursday. Then dry through the end of the month.

dry pattern

We may have to rely on snowmaking for now. Hopefully, the GFS model is onto something for the end of the month into early December, but confidence is low right now.

It would be nice to get some help from the MJO (Madden Julian Oscillation) to help in changing the pattern in our favor. Looking at the long-range forecasts for the MJO it doesn't look favorable for us until around Christmas week. The latest European Weeklies model forecast had a dry forecast over the next 30 days...

euro weeklies

... and then wetter starting around the 3rd week of December, in line with my thoughts on the timing of the MJO giving us some help. Hopefully, it isn't that long until we see a wet pattern return... 

I'll keep looking for any signs of hope and will continue to keep it real. Let's hope for as many cold dry nights as possible in the meantime so that we can get this season started!

Stay tuned & pray for snow...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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