It's a beautiful morning here in the Tahoe basin, as seen from Homewood on the West Shore!

Not a cloud in the sky but still some brisk east winds. The winds are expected to calm down through Thursday morning. Highs warming into the 30s on the mountains and into the low 40s at lake level for Wed-Thu. Beautiful skiing weather.

Ridgetop winds and high clouds increase later Thursday ahead of the next storm. Ridgetop gusts up to 30-40+ mph from the southwest by afternoon.

Friday Weakling:

We have a very weak system headed our way for Friday and a slightly wetter system for Saturday night into Sunday. Then likely drier again next week.

The latest model runs have trended back to showing the Friday system weakening as it approaches the northern Sierra, with several models showing no precipitation reaching us again.

Here is a look at the European model forecast for total precipitation through Friday night.

The ICON and NAM models agree as well as the European control and ensemble mean models. On the wetter side (not really that wet) are the GFS and Canadian models showing up to 2 tenths of an inch on the high end reaching the crest, and the WPCs blended model shows a similar forecast.

The trend is drier so the forecast for snow is not looking good for Friday. We will have mostly cloudy skies and gusty winds along with some colder temperatures. Highs in the 30s for the lower elevations and 20s in the higher elevations. Ridgetop winds from the southwest could be gusting up to 50-60+ mph Friday morning, which could affect some upper mountain lifts.

The winds drop off slowly through the day. We'll have to see how much moisture reaches us if any. Snow levels could be hovering right near to just below lake level at around 5500-6000 ft. through the day. The wetter models suggest snow showers move in around 1-2 AM and taper off around 5-8 PM if we see any. Here is my updated snowfall forecast for little if any snow by Friday night.

Saturday:

We will have a break between storms Saturday as high pressure builds in briefly. Partly-mostly sunny skies and slightly milder temperatures. Highs in the 30s on the mountains to near 40 at lake level. Ridgetop winds start light but increase later in the day ahead of the next storm, with gusts up to 30-40+ mph from the southwest by the end of the day.

Saturday Night - Sunday Storm:

There is a split among the models with how much the 2nd storm holds together as well as it moves into the northern Sierra. It's a stronger system with more of a moisture feed from off of the Pacific, so it should have a better chance of bringing us some snow.

The GFS model above has been showing a storm that is much wetter than any other model over the past 24 hours. It has up to 2+ inches of liquid falling west of the lake up along the Sierra crest.

The Canadian model is the driest and only shows up to 2 tenths of an inch!

We definitely need to iron out these differences over the next few days. The rest of the models show 0.4 - 0.75 inches on the high-end along the crest with up to a few tenths to the east side of the basin by early Monday morning. The total model average is around 0.9 inches thanks to the GFS model pulling the average a couple of tenths higher than the 2nd wettest model.

We could see snow move in around 10 PM - Midnight Saturday night and continue into Sunday evening. Then winding down Sunday night and clearing out by Monday morning. It's not a cold storm with snow levels starting around 5500-6000 ft. and hovering there through Sunday, and then falling below 5000 ft. by the end Sunday night.

The snowfall forecast is tricky as the Canadian model shows 1-2 inches of snow across the basin and the GFS model shows 1-2+ feet of snow, haha. All we can do for now is to use the model average. Here is my initial snowfall forecast for Saturday night through Sunday night, for totals by early Monday morning.

We'll continue to fine-tune the forecast as the models come into better agreement as we get closer (at least they should, ugh).

Starting Monday through at least Thursday the 9th, high pressure builds in near the West Coast.

That should bring us a drier pattern but it should stay on the cooler side with the highest pressure centers to our west. Mostly sunny skies with highs into the 30s and 40s. There is an outside chance that a system diving down to our east next Wed-Thu could brush us with some clouds and a few snow showers, but overall expecting a mostly dry pattern.

Fantasy Range:

By the 10th-11th the long-range models continue to show the ridge building in the northeast Pacific a bit farther northwest from the west Coast, and staying in that pattern through mid-month.

That could just shift us from one dry pattern to another but slightly colder as the high in the northeast Pacific helps to drive some colder air down into the West. We could see an uptick in weak systems dropping down into CA from the north into the West side of the trough. Not a completely dry pattern with shots of light snow possible every couple of days or so, but overall below average precip is expected through mid-month.

We'll continue to watch each system closely as we go into this pattern through mid-month. If a storm or two tracks farther west just off the coast, they could tap into additional moisture from off of the Pacific Ocean, which could bring us a bit more snow. Until then we'll just expect weak systems with light snow to continue for now.

Stay tuned...BA

P.S. We recorded a new episode of The Flakes Podcast last night. We go through some of the records set in January and for the season so far. Check it out! I'll also have more January stats to share with you over the next several days!

Fresh Tracks!

This week we talk about Where the Snow Is Headed as we reach the Mid-Point of Winter, catch up with Powder Chaser Stever to see Where He is Chasing Snow, check in with Zach Butler to see What the Heck is Going On with the Northeast's Winter, report the 5-Day Snowfall Totals around the U.S., look at the Snowfall Forecast for The Upcoming Week, and discuss The Long-Range Snowfall Patterns!