We saw continued snow showers yesterday that brought several more inches of snow to the mountains.  Some the ski resorts are slowing down on the timing of their morning reports, so a few of these are from yesterday evening...

 

The band of snow associated with the weak system moving through today is holding together pretty well this morning.  We should see a burst of snowfall this morning as the moisture moves through. 

The latest model runs are slightly wetter for today.  Here is the updated snowfall forecast.

 

We have a break Thursday with lighter winds after gusts to 45 today up high. The temperatures today through the weekend should be in the 30’s on the mountains to low 40’s at lake level.  The next storm moves in Friday.

As discussed yesterday this storm is splitting and precip amounts have come down a bit from a few days ago.  There also looks to be quite a bit of rain shadowing with a lot less moisture making it East of the crest into the East side of the Tahoe basin.  The snow levels look to be around 7000 feet Friday into Friday night, before falling at the tail end later Friday night.  Winds will crank up again Friday.

The latest model runs are a tiny bit wetter this morning.  Here is the GFS total precip forecast through Saturday.

 

Only increased the high end snowfall forecast about an inch.  You can see not much snow expected below 7000 feet.

 

We should start to clear out during the day Saturday with a break into Sunday.  By later Sunday afternoon into Sunday night the next storm moves in.  This one looks a little colder, and could start as all snow to lake level with snow lasting into Monday morning.  The trend the past 24 hours has been wetter with this storm as it taps a bit more subtropical moisture.  The GFS is running a few tenths wetter than the European model. 

Here is a look at the GFS total precip forecast through Monday.

 

Based on the latest model runs we could see similar amounts of snowfall as the Friday storm on the mountains, and slightly more at lake level if we see the lower snow levels.

 

High pressure looks like it wants to build in and sit off the coast next week.  We should begin a warming and drying trend by Tuesday through the end of next week.  There are still hints of a weak system trying to brush us Tuesday and again Friday, but I’m not very confident in any moisture making it this far South next week.

We will have to keep watching to see if we can get another storm to sneak in the week of the 3^rd as some model runs hint at. 

Stay tuned…BA

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.