Summary:

Sunny and mild today and Tuesday with highs in the 60's at lake level and 50's on the mountains.  Then on Wednesday the next storm pushes in with gusty winds, falling temperatures, and rain/snow moving in.  Heavy snow is expected Wednesday night for all elevations, with light snow lingering into Thursday.  We could see more light snow Friday into Friday night before high pressure and sun build back in for the weekend.  We may have another week of dry weather starting next Saturday.

Details:

We have some minor changes to the forecast over the last 2 days.  The main change is to start the precip earlier on Wednesday, and then to linger the snow showers longer into Thursday.  

It will be sunny and warm through Tuesday.  As we go later into the season it becomes more common to have these abrupt changes in the weather as storms move in.  We will go from sunny with highs in the 60's Tuesday, to snow by Wednesday afternoon.  

The dry air in place will help to lower the high snow levels Wednesday, but we aren't expecting the heavy precip to arrive until Wednesday night.  We should see rain change to snow on the mountains Wednesday, with up to an inch or two on the mountains on the West side of the lake.  The winds will be gusting over 60 mph on the mountains.

Then the cold front moves through Wednesday night with heavy snow for all elevations.  The front is fast moving which will limit significant amounts of snow.  We could see up to 8 inches on the mountains on the East side of the lake and over a foot on the West side.

We should see lingering snow showers on the mountains Thursday that could bring a few more inches before the snow tapers off by Thursday evening.  I have updated the resort forecast pages to show this.

The GFS and European models are in decent agreement with the total precip for the storm, with up to 1.8 inches of liquid along the crest.  The Canadian is slightly drier.  Here is the GFS forecast.

and here is the updated total snowfall forecast for the storm.

Thursday should be a great powder day after over 2 weeks of sun!

There is another system that will move into the Pacific NW on Friday and Friday night.  The European model has been bringing it far enough South to bring us a few additional inches of snowfall.  The GFS has been keeping it further North, but has been a little further South with some runs.  The Canadian forecast model has it further South like the European.  So I do have a few inches of snow Friday night on the resort forecast pages.

Long-Range:

The high pressure ridge builds back in next weekend bringing back drier and milder weather.  That should last into most of the following week.  The long-range of the models do suggest a weak system pushing through around Friday the 26th.

The long-range ensemble runs of the GFS show the trough in the Eastern Pacific finally pushing close to the West Coast by the end of the month with the jet stream and train of storm breaking into the West Coast going into March.

This is the pattern we were thinking may happen later in the month as the MJO activity moves through the Pacific.  However, the European ensemble runs are keeping the trough further off the coast with the ridge continuing to keep us dry.  Some of the Canadian model runs show the trough pushing closer, while the other runs are similar to the European with only weak systems trying to push in going into March.

We will keep watching to see if there is better agreement as we get closer.  The snowfall above 8000 feet is still slightly above average for the date.  At 7000 feet we have fallen to about 90% of average, and the snowpack has now fallen below average for the date.  The total precip has fallen to 107% of average.  Right now it looks like we could end the month near to below average for all.  We will need to get things going again in March.

The CFSv2 still thinks we will see a wet March.

I was looking at the Canadian monthlies this morning and it has a favorable pattern for wet conditions into May.  So maybe once Spring starts in the East we will continue to get storms later in the season, like we have seen the last few years.

Stay tuned....BA