Tahoe Daily Snow

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By Bryan Allegretto, Forecaster Posted 7 years ago February 24, 2017

The Icing on Top...

Summary

Today will be partly sunny, cold and breezy up on the mountains with highs in the 20's and winds gusting to 30 mph up high. Tonight into Saturday a weak system moves down from the North and could brings some very light snow showers. We could see 1-2 inches of snow across the Tahoe basin by Saturday evening. High temperatures remain in the 20's and ridge winds continue to gust up to 30 mph. Saturday night into Sunday we should have another break with partly cloudy skies. Then another weak system moves through from the North Sunday night into Monday morning. That system could bring another 1-3 inches of snow across the Tahoe basin. Lows continue to be in the teens and highs in the 20's through Monday. Starting Tuesday high pressure starts to build in as we head into an extended dry period. Temperatures start out cold on Tuesday in the 30's but warm into the 40's by the end of next week with plenty of sunshine. The storm track is to our North in the long-range but starts to try and shift South the 2nd week of March. We will have to see if it will be able to eventually bring storms, but right now no storms on the horizon after this weekend.

Short Term Forecast

I am back to the normal early morning posting time.  Next season I will be able to share with you the project I have been working on.  

The systems dropping from the North into the Cold trough over the West continue to trend drier for the weekend.  It is always the case with these patterns that a slight shift in the track of the lows from the North can make a big difference in how much moisture is pulled in off the ocean.  

The first system for tonight into tomorrow is trending further West missing us with precip.  The forecast models are in decent agreement with only up to a tenth of an inch of liquid with this first low.  The atmosphere is cold and unstable so snow showers should break out tonight into Saturday.  The cold air will help to fluff the snow so we may see up to 2 inches on the mountains and an inch at lake level.

Here is a look at the precip forecast on the GFS.

gfs1

The system we thought earlier this week it could merge with on Saturday will moves into SoCal on Saturday.  Then a couple more weak disturbances move down from the North Sunday into Monday.  Not expected more than a few scattered snow showers possible Sunday.  Then a better chance for Snow showers Sunday night into Monday morning.  This system has been trending further East over land without much moisture from the ocean, which is also making for a drier forecast.

Here is a look at the measly amount of precip in total through the weekend on the latest GFS run.  The European model is only slightly wetter by a few tenths.

gfs2

We could see 1-3 inches Sunday night into Monday morning on the latest model runs.  In total for the weekend only expecting cold air, breezy conditions up high, and light snow showers that could pile up to several inches on the mountains.  Just the icing on the cake after the massive snowfall amounts.  Here is the forecast for the entire weekend taking the GFS/Euro average.

weekend

If the GFS is right take the low end if the European model is right take the higher end.  Of interest is that the Canadian model pulls in more moisture for Sunday night off the ocean.  I was doing the same the last couple of days as the outlier, so it is still the outlier but interesting to keep an eye on.

canadian

Starting Tuesday the ridge in the Gulf of Alaska begins to retrograde Westward allowing a ridge to begin to build near the CA coast bringing drier weather and warming trend the rest of next week.

Extended Forecast

In the long-range it appears the dry spell will last at least a week with the jet stream will to the North. It does appear that the jet stream may begin to shift further South again the 2nd week of March.  At the far end of the operational model runs out 2 weeks they still keep any precip just to our North.  So no signs right now of a return of storms.

After we get through the snow showers this weekend our focus will turn to when the storm may return.  I think we will all enjoy the rare break in the storms though.  I think we have plenty of snow to last a little while...  Conditions are pretty amazing.

Stay tuned...BA

Announcements

Geography Key:

East

Mt. Rose, Heavenly, Diamond Peak

Central

Northstar

West

Tahoe Donner, Homewood, Bear Valley, Dodge Ridge

Crest

Boreal, Donner Ski Ranch, Sugar Bowl, Squaw, Alpine, Sierra, Kirkwood

*Boreal and Donner Ski Ranch are forecast with the "West" mountains in higher snow levels events.

*The snowfall forecasts on the ski resort pages are for the upper mountains at 8000'.

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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