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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago January 25, 2023

Colder with Some Snow Sunday...

Summary

The dry pattern lasts through Saturday. Colder air and snow showers move in Sunday with snow showers lingering into Monday. Drier weather Tuesday through the 2nd. More storms are possible starting around the 3rd.

Short Term Forecast

It's not quite as cold here Wednesday morning with slight inversions and breezy northeast winds. Temperatures are starting in the teens and 20s. It will be mostly sunny Wednesday with highs in the 30s. Northeast winds increase with gusty northeast ridge winds by the afternoon, gusting up to 40-50+ mph.

Thursday - Saturday:

The dry pattern continues through Saturday with mostly sunny skies, slightly milder temperatures, and breezy/gusty winds. Highs into the 30s on the mountains and low 40s for lake level. Northeast winds come down some Thursday and then turn northwest Friday and to the west Saturday, with ridgetop gusts up to 30-40+ mph by Saturday afternoon.

Sunday - Monday Cold & Snow:

Right on time with our expectations for a pattern change for a while now, the pattern shifts on Sunday with a cold trough digging into CA from the north. The snow is expected to move in with the front during the early morning hours Sunday.

storm

Then scattered snow showers are expected to continue through Sunday night and possibly lingering into Monday. Much colder air pours south into the region with highs dropping into the 20s. Gusty southwest winds Sunday up to 50+ mph over the ridges and then coming down later in the day into Monday.

Most of the snow is expected to fall through Sunday night. By Monday evening the latest forecast model runs show up to 0.3 - 0.5 tenths of an inch of total precipitation over the mountains on the high end. So not a very wet system as it moves north to south over land with little moisture. The precip will only be enhanced by the lifts from the mountains.

wpc

The forecast map above doesn't show it very well, but usually with storms that track north to south over the Sierra, we see similar precipitation amounts on the west and east sides of the basin. The cold air will help to fluff the snowfall with dry and powdery snow expected. Snow ratios could average around 12-17:1 on the mountains, and a bit higher Sunday night.

Here is my initial snowfall forecast for the storm through Monday. 

snowfall

We'll continue to watch the trends. With a storm like this with narrower snow bands forming, we can see some mountains that beat the forecast while others come in on the low end depending on where the bands of heavier snow set up.

Extended Forecast

The long-range models are coming into better agreement on the timing of the pattern shifts going into the first week of February. The cold trough that digs into the region Sunday is forecast to shift to our east starting Tuesday the 31st, while a second trough develops off the West Coast through February 2nd.

ridge

That could pump a ridge over the West Coast for the 1st-2nd, with a dry period for the 31st-2nd and likely a slight warming of high temperatures.

Fantasy Range:

By day 10 (February 3rd), the trough is forecast to push into the West Coast.

trough 2

There is still some disagreement among the deterministic models on how far south this trough digs into CA. They show an active storm track into the Pacific NW and far northern CA starting around the 3rd through the 9th, but shift every other run with how far south they dig the storm into the Sierra.

This is the shift to a more active West coast pattern that we were watching for in the fantasy range for a while now, which we were thinking could be set up for the first week of February. The long-range models have it shifted 2 days to the 3rd-9th. While it looks to become more active to our north, we'll have to see if wetter storms will track far enough south to hit the northern Sierra.

The ensemble mean models are still in good agreement that we see a wetter period with near to above-average precipitation in the northern Sierra during this 7-day period.

wet

We'll continue to watch the trends as we get closer to see if we could get the snowfall going again for February.

Uber Fantasy Range:

Beyond the 9th, the long-range models continue to show high-pressure building back in closer to the West Coast. 

ridge 2

That could bring us below-average precipitation through most of the rest of the month.

drier pattern

The storms we do see could be similar to Sunday's system where they track down from the north over land and are moisture starved. Hopefully, we see a few decent storms or maybe the long-range models will shift their thinking with the overall pattern for February. We'll see...

I don't always give a pattern outlook out more than 2 weeks, but I'm just trying to set the expectation that February could be the first below-average snowfall and precipitation month since October. Then we can be pleasantly surprised by the good storms. We'll continue to keep an eye on the 3rd-9th as the soonest we may have a chance to see a decent storm.

Stay tuned...BA

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This week The Flakes talk about the Snow Returning to the Northeast, chat with Julien Ross about the Great Snow in New Mexico, report Snowfall Around the rest of The U.S., look at the Snowfall Forecast for The Upcoming Week, and discuss the Long-Range Snowfall Patterns.

crest

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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