Tahoe Daily Snow

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

By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago February 5, 2023

Warm & Fast...

Summary

Snow showers continue through Sunday afternoon before winding down by Sunday evening. A drier pattern is expected starting Monday through at least Friday. A storm dropping down the coast may or may not be close enough to bring rain & snow to the Sierra Saturday into Sunday the 12th. A more active pattern could continue through the 3rd week of February.

Short Term Forecast

Overnight Storm Recap:

We were expecting snow levels to run close to lake level through Saturday evening. Here's part of my discussion from Saturday morning.

discussion

Unfortunately for lake level, we saw some rain as feared which kept totals down. For the rest of the basin that stayed snow, the temperatures stayed fairly warm ahead of the front with wet snow falling and temperatures near 35 degrees for some areas as it was snowing, with very low snow ratios.

On top of that, the cold front moved through rather quickly with little in the way of snow showers firing up behind the front as the models had shown. We saw a lull in the snow between 1-6 AM. Here's a look at the overnight radar.

fast radar

During that time the snow settled. Looking at the mid-mountain snow sensor at Palisades. Very little snow fell after 1 AM, they had a foot of new snow as of 3 AM which settled to 10" by the time they reported at 5 AM.

palisades sensor

The same thing down at Kirkwood with 9 inches as of 1 AM that settled to 8" by the time they reported at 5 AM.

kw

We were expecting several inches of snow to fall during the period of 1-6 AM. I knew something was wrong when I got up to pee at 2 AM and the radar was blank... I checked the forecast model runs leading up to the storm's arrival to see if they trended down, and they all still had up to 2"+ of total liquid forecast for the crest as of midday Saturday.

nam

BUT, the European model actually dropped the forecast by over 6 tenths of an inch on the final model run right as the snow was moving in!

euro

So no one caught that one model on one run Saturday evening as the storm was moving in. Everyone over-forecast the snowfall for the overnight period Saturday night. I had a forecast for 6-18 inches on the mountains by early Sunday morning, and the reports as of 6 AM are 4-14 inches.

That doesn't sound that bad thanks to the taller mountains on the east side of the lake, which were colder and picked up the forecast amounts overnight. 12" at both Heavenly & Mt. Rose. West of the lake is where we expected 13-18 inches with reports of only 5-14 inches, with the lower elevation measurements & south of the lake hit hardest by the warmer temps, on top of the lull behind the fast-moving front.

reports 2

I think the taller east side mountains will still pick up the total storm forecast by Sunday evening, and Homewood & Northstar as well as they measure above mid-mountain and did pretty well overnight. The rest of the mountains, especially south of the lake where it was warmer, are 10-17 inches short of the forecast and will likely come in under.

Sunday Snow Showers:

The snow showers are filling back in Sunday morning as the low off the coast rotates inland.

radar

The snow showers will be heavy at times with some breaks between. Then tapering off by Sunday evening. The good news is that temperatures are now in the 20s with higher snow ratios. These snow showers are also more convective with their own lift enhanced by mountain lift. We tend to do better than expected for some mountains in these scenarios, let's hope!

Highs in the 20s with snow levels below 5000 ft. Snow ratios are up around 10-15:1 from bottom to top on the mountains. The winds are still gusting up to 60-70+ mph over exposed ridges from the west-southwest Sunday morning. They are forecast to come down through the day but could cause a few lift delays in the morning.

The latest model runs show 0.2 - 0.9 inches of liquid across the basin during the day on Sunday. 

total precip

That would be enough for 2-10 inches of additional snowfall across the basin from east to west and low to high in elevation by Sunday evening. Let's hope some mountains along the crest get the over, especially to the south of the lake where they came in low overnight. We'll tally up the totals and I'll give you the forecaster report card Monday morning. I'm scared of what it will show...

Monday - Friday:

High pressure builds in over CA through the week with a dry pattern expected, and mostly sunny skies each day.

ridge

We start off colder Monday with highs in the 30s and brisk northeast winds making it feel even colder. Ridgetop gusts up to 30-40+ mph and possibly higher near Kirkwood. For the rest of the week, we expect lighter winds and highs into the 40s for the lower elevations and lake level.

Extended Forecast

The long-range model runs continue to show a cut-off low tracking south down the West Coast next weekend, the 11th-12th. The European model still keeps the low well off the coast with the dry pattern continuing through next weekend.

euro low

But the GFS model has been trending the low closer to the coast with each run over the past 24 hours, and now shows the low tracking south hugging the CA coast.

gfs low

That would push rain and snow into the Sierra Saturday into next Sunday the 12th. These are two completely different scenarios right now between the models. We'll be watching the trends all week to see if we will stay dry through next Sunday, or if we could see another weekend with fresh snow.

Mid-Month & Beyond:

Despite what happens with the cut-off low, by the 14th the long-range models agree that the next storm could move into the West Coast.

14th storm

This is the beginning of the pattern shift the models have been showing going into the 2nd half of February, with a trough digging in over the West through at least the 21st, and possibly into the last week of the month.

trough

The cold storm the models show dropping in from the north-northwest on the 14th could be the first of several systems taking a similar track. The ensemble mean models continue to show near to just above-average precipitation for the northern Sierra for the 3rd week of February.

wetter

We'll continue to watch the trends. Hopefully after a dry pattern this upcoming week, we'll be heading into a more active period by mid-month and beyond. Let's hope that the mid-winter below-average precipitation period we were expecting only lasts for a month or less. 

We did likely get some help from the active phase of the MJO in the Indian Ocean over the past week, with 3 storms moving through. It may have been even drier from the end of the last wet period that ended in mid-January through the 2nd week of February. 

Stay tuned...BA

P.S. I'll be leaving on a trip Monday to a time zone to our west. So my posts may be out a bit later than normal as I don't plan to get up at 2 AM each day to compensate for the time change. Thanks for understanding! 

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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