Over the past week, we saw a good deal of monsoon moisture flow into the southwestern U.S.

Most of that stayed to the south and east of the Tahoe basin, although we did see some showers. Just east over Reno, we saw quite a bit more in the way of showers and thunderstorms. They have already surpassed the August precip record only 10 days into the month!

While the moisture is welcome and much needed over the southwest, for our area the biggest effect seems to be maybe helping some to mitigate fires and smoke. As of Thursday morning, there is only one area of smoke showing up on our smoke maps. This could be one of the quietest mid-August smoke maps in several years. Knock on wood...

Most of the summer so far seems to be relatively quiet for fires compared to what we've seen recently.

The Forecast:

The weather looks nice and fairly boring through the upcoming weekend. Dry and sunny with highs near average around 80 degrees at lake level each day.

Typical afternoon winds from the southwest with gusts of 15-20+ mph on the lake creating afternoon chop. Ridgetop winds gusting up to 20-30+ mph at times if you're hiking to peaks, and 3-15 degrees cooler between 7000-10,000 ft. I spent the day on the beach on the north shore yesterday and it was very nice and smoke-free!

The pattern could shift starting Monday through next week, with the monsoonal moisture flow shifting westward a bit towards the Sierra. Maybe a shower by Monday afternoon, but a better chance looks to be afternoons starting Tuesday.

All of this precipitation over the southwest is great news for the drought! The weather pattern could remain in summer mode through the end of the month. Hopefully, the quiet fire season continues as well.

Winter:

We are still in August and just looking at a few signs for the upcoming winter as it's still way too early to really discuss any potential patterns. Last week I posted the Farmers' Almanac winter forecast which is always fun to look at. This week I thought I'd show you the current Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomaly map (right) compared to August 2020 (left).

We look to be headed into a 3rd La Nina season in a row, maybe a modoki La Nina where the coldest water is centered in the central Pacific along the equator. 2020 & 2022 look similar to me right now, except that this year the warmer areas look warmer and colder areas colder than 2020. Interesting...

We will have to watch how things develop as we go into the fall, as the SSTs are a big part of the winter forecasts. 

Stay tuned...BA

I feel like unless you live under a rock you know that our community is looking for a young lady that went missing from Prosser Campground just north of Truckee this past weekend. Maybe if you live outside of the area you haven't heard yet, but maybe you can help by being on the lookout for Kiely and her vehicle in your area, or by praying for her safe return...

#FindKiely | Kiely Rodni | Truckee CA