Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago March 16, 2023

A Break Before Winter Returns...

Summary

Mostly sunny through Saturday along with lighter winds. A weak system for Sunday with some light snow. A stronger storm moves in Monday and could last into Wednesday. Another storm is possible for the 24th-25th. The storm door looks to remain open through the end of the month, but the storms may become weaker.

Short Term Forecast

Mostly sunny through Saturday along with lighter winds. Highs into the 30s on the mountains and 40s at lake level. We could see a few clouds later Friday and Saturday as a system splits as it moves through CA. It looks like a small chance of any showers.

Sunday System:

A weak system is still on track to move in Sunday morning with some light snow during the day and exiting Sunday night. Highs will cool into the 30s. Ridgetop winds from the southwest look to increase with gusts up to 40-50+ mph.

weak system

The latest model runs have mostly all trended a tiny bit wetter with this system, except for the GFS model which is a bit drier. The high-end range near the crest is 0.3 - 0.65 inches with up to 0.3 inches to the east side of the lake. The total model average this morning is around 0.53 inches. Here is the WPC's blended model forecast.

wpc 1

Snow levels look to start a little high but fall Sunday morning to around 6000-6500 ft., which is near to just above lake level. Even if we stay all snow at lake level it's March with a high sun angle and highs near to above freezing, so we may only see snow accumulate on cold surfaces.

Snow showers could linger into Sunday night with snow levels falling to around 5200-5700 ft. By early Monday morning, we could see a coating up to a few inches near lake level, and 1-8 inches on the mountains above 7k'.

snowfall

Monday - Wednesday Storm:

A pair of low-pressure systems are forecast to move into the West Coast Monday and Tuesday bringing some heavier precipitation. We are getting into late March and these systems start to become detached from the steering winds of the jet stream and harder to forecast their timing and track. 

storms

They could tap into some deeper Pacific moisture with some heavy snow for the mountains. The latest model runs are pushing the heaviest precipitation to our south and bringing in enough cold air for all snow on the mountains and mostly snow to lake level. Highs drop into the 20s on the upper mountains and 30s at lake level. We will also see increasing winds.

I want to watch the trends one more day before putting out a big snowfall forecast, especially being late in the season when the model accuracy starts to go down. The models are forecasting several inches of liquid so we will likely be measuring in feet for the 3-day period.

wet

I'll put out a detailed snowfall forecast Friday morning after one more day of watching the track of these systems and how they may come together over CA.

Extended Forecast

The long-range models continue to show troughing over CA through the last week of March, which would keep temperatures below average and the storm door open.

trough

We are watching the trends on the next storm that continues to show up on the models around the 24th-25th, which would only give us a one-day break between storms next Thursday the 23rd.

24th storm

Fantasy Range:

We could see additional storms move through during the last week of March. The ensemble mean models show above-average precipitation continuing through the last week of March for the Pacific NW down into the northern Sierra.

wet

As we get later in the month usually the storms are weaker as the seasons change. It doesn't seem to be working out that way for next week, and we'll have to see how much snow we could add through the end of the month.

There are some signs that high pressure could begin to build in near the West Coast bringing a quieter pattern around the start of April. I have been willing that to happen for the first weekend of April with multiple outdoor events I'll be attending. Hopefully, the models continue to trend that way.

Stay tuned...BA

Announcements

The Flakes!

This week, Mike loses his mind as winter continues into Spring with no end in sight. Will we see any spring skiing before the ski areas close in April? Caleb is chasing snow in Canada this week. We run through all the numbers including the updated top 10 snowfall list. Then we talk through the forecasts for more storms and snow across the country and search for any signs of a break.

Available on most podcast platforms...

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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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