Tahoe Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest Tahoe Daily Snow

By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago November 28, 2022

A Colder Week Becoming Snowy Thursday...

Summary

Monday a weak system will bring gusty winds, colder air, and a few snow showers later in the day. After a break Tue-Wed, a stronger storm is possible for Thursday - Friday, and another storm is possible next weekend.

Short Term Forecast

It's a windy Monday morning as a cold front approaches. Highs only into the 30s for Monday with ridgetop winds gusting up to 60-70+ mph from the west. That will make it feel even colder and could close a couple of upper mountain lifts at exposed mountains.

The front moving through during the afternoon and evening is pretty dry and may squeeze out a few snow showers around the region, but overall only enough precip for a dusting of snow at best for most areas and maybe up to an inch on a peak or two.

wpc 1

Tuesday - Wednesday:

The colder air stays with us through Wednesday but not super cold. Highs into the 30s and near 40 degrees for some areas around lake level. We should see mostly sunny skies both days.

Lighter winds for Tuesday and then ramping back up Wednesday ahead of the next storm. Southwest winds increasing through the day with ridgetop gusts up to 60-70+ mph by afternoon. That could again close some upper mountain lifts at exposed mountains.

Thursday Storm:

All eyes are on the storm for Thursday. We have been tracking this storm for a while now and it continues to look like it will come together the way we have been expecting. A cold low from the Gulf of Alaska drops down the West Coast and taps into moisture from a system northeast of Hawaii bringing us a fairly wet and cold storm.

thu storm

Confidence is continuing to build as we are now only 3 days out from the arrival of the storm. The latest forecast model runs have sped up the arrival a bit. The GFS model shows snow showers reaching the Donner Summit to the NW of the lake as early as the early morning hours Thursday. Then heavy snow by Thursday afternoon that winds down Thursday night and ends by Friday morning.

The good news is that the snow levels look to start out around 5000-5500 ft. on Thursday. The bad news is that winds will be gusting up to 100+ mph over the ridges and will likely close quite a few ski lifts Thursday. Temperatures are in the 30s at lake level and 20s for the upper mountains. A true storm day.

The snow levels may hover in the 4500-5500 ft. range through the day with the heavier snow with the Pacific moisture feed, but lots of cold air with this storm so as the moisture stream starts to shift south into Thursday night and snow showers continue the snow levels plummet, as low as 1000 ft. by the end. That means powdery snow falls for the last several inches setting up a right-side-up storm that could bring a good powder day Friday.

The forecast models have been very consistent and in good agreement with total precipitation amounts over the past 24 hours. The range is still 1.3 - 2.0 inches of total precip down the west side of the basin along the Sierra crest, and up to 1.5 inches spilling over the east side of the basin. The total model average is up about 1-tenth to 1.8 inches this morning down the crest.

wpc 2

With that slight bump and the models a bit colder with higher snow:liquid ratios this morning, my updated snowfall forecast is up a few inches on the high end.

snowfall

Still a 1-2 footer for the region and ski areas generally, with a few peaks that could tap 2.5 feet up top.

Friday:

The locals don't like when I tout great powder days in advance. Sshhhh... The winds should drop off Friday and the sun will come out and it will be cold. All the ingredients for a great Tahoe powder day. Highs only in the 20s on the mountains to near freezing at lake level.

Extended Forecast

The next storm is still on track as well. If you don't hit the fresh snow from the first storm on Friday you may encounter increasing winds Saturday ahead of the next storm. We may start with a little sun in the morning with increasing clouds throughout the day. Highs into the 30s at lake level and 20s for the upper mountains.

The latest model runs show that the low that the Thursday storm taps into off the coast may actually still be off the CA coast by Saturday with the next storm possibly drawing in moisture from it as well into CA. The GFS suggests snow could return as early as Saturday afternoon with other models holding off until Saturday night into Sunday.

sat storm

The latest model runs continue to show slightly less precipitation is possible with this storm, but another 1-2 feet for the mountains is possible. We'll look at the snowfall forecast in more detail starting Tuesday once it enters the 5-day window. Here is a look at the total precipitation forecast on the WPC's blended model through Sunday.

wpc 3

Snow levels will likely rise up near to just below lake level to start as warmer air is drawn in ahead of the storm, but should then drop again into Sunday. This storm should be mostly all snow to lake level as well based on the latest model runs. 

The Week of the 5th:

The long-range models suggest the trough over the West shifts east next week and the storm track may be shifted well to our north for most of the week.

ridge

We are on the cold side of the high-pressure ridge in the northeast Pacific, so the temperatures should stay fairly cold. The 10-day temperature anomaly forecasts keep the West Coast below average.

cold

Fantasy Range:

By the 10th of December through mid-month, the long-range models suggest that troughing could return to the West Coast.

troughing

That may open the storm door back up with more cold storms dropping into from the Gulf of Alaska.

November has been fairly cold and snowy for the northern Sierra and for the northern Rockies and areas to our north. It has also been quite snowy for most of the northern hemisphere. According to the NOAA/Rutgers northern hemisphere snowfall extent tracking, it's at one of the highest levels for this date.

noaa n hemisphere snow extent

The winter forecast I put out back in October suggested a colder-than-average winter with a good start to the snowfall season, which it looks like we could see into December. But the fear was we dry up through the heart of the winter and end up below average. Hopefully, that part of the forecast is wrong...

Stay tuned...BA

Announcements

We're Ba-ack!!!

On this week's episode, we follow Caleb's dream winter, look at the 5-Day Snowfall Reports for U.S. Ski Resorts, go through the 5-Day Snowfall Forecasts, discuss the Long Range Outlook, as well as a few laughs!

Be sure to join us for another season of good times chasing snow!

Available on most podcast platforms...

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.

Free OpenSnow App