Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago April 21, 2022

The Last Snow Day?...

Summary

Snow, heavy at times, Thursday into Thursday night with significant snowfall for the mountains. Scattered showers lingering into Friday. Nicer weather for the weekend into next week. The pattern may or may not become a bit unsettled at the end of the month into the first week of May.

Short Term Forecast

Heavy snow is falling across the Tahoe Basin this morning. The storm is spinning off the coast directing moisture into the Sierra and will continue to do so today.

sat

So far the 3 ski resorts open reported 3-7 inches as of 5 AM. Several more inches have fallen already since then. I have reader reports of up to a foot of snow at their house west of 89 as of 8 AM. The Snow Lab was over 14 inches and counting as of 8 AM as well.

reports

We have strong winds this morning with ridgetop gusts up to 90+ mph dropping to 40-50+ mph by the end of the day. That should cause a few upper mountain lift closures this morning that may come down later in the day. Highs into the 30s.

Moisture continues to stream into the northern Sierra this morning.

radar

The models still show another wave of heavier precip pushing in this afternoon. Then decent convective snow showers are expected to fire up tonight. Then scattered snow showers are possible Friday with little if any additional accumulations expected.

The latest model runs still show up to 2 additional inches along the crest from 5 AM through Friday. 

wpc

That's enough for an additional 10-20" of snow on the mountains by Friday. I already put out the final forecast for this storm Wednesday morning. I had 4-14" for lake level and 1-2+ feet for the mountains. I may be low at lake level as snow levels dropped a bit faster than expected overnight.

Snow levels should hover where they are today and then fall below 5000 ft. Thursday night. Then back up to 6000-7000 ft. Friday afternoon with any leftover scattered showers. We'll just continue to watch the snow fall and we will tally up the totals Friday.

The Weekend:

High pressure builds back in over CA over the weekend. We should see nice weather with sunny skies, lighter winds, and warming temperatures. Highs into the 40s at lake level Saturday and 50s for Sunday.

ridge

Extended Forecast

We should stay dry for most of next week with the nice spring weather continuing. A trough in the northeast Pacific may begin to push into the Pacific NW through the end of the week.

trough

That could bring an active pattern to the Pacific NW by the end of the week, but the storms look to stay to our north through Friday. We could see gusty ridgetop winds return by Tuesday. We will watch to see if a storm could brush as the European model suggests next Friday night.

euro 1

Fantasy Range:

The GFS model continues to suggest that we could see the trough push farther south into CA through the first week of May.

gfs trough

That could allow a late-season storm or two to move into northern CA during the 1st week of May.

may storm

We will be down to just Mammoth & Palisades being open by then, but we will continue to watch the trends. The European model suggests ridging for the 1st week of May with a dry pattern.

ridge 2

So we'll have to see which way it trends as we get closer. I will continue to forecast snowfall through the end of spring if Mother Nature wants to continue to send us late-season storms. For now, it looks likely that Thursday could be the last big snow day in the Tahoe Basin until next season. But who knows for sure...

Stay tuned...BA

Announcements

Ski Area Latest Reported Closing Dates:

closings

Always check for the latest updates on each ski resort's own website in case of changing dates.

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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