Update Saturday Evening:

Only one last comment on the storm before we get into the updated forecast for Monday. 

I rode both Kirkwood and Squaw today and drove around the lake.  I also was following Twitter most of the day.  This storm brought a beating to the lower terrain below 7500 feet and some ski resorts lost terrain.  Meanwhile high ski resorts that saw 6-10 inches on the upper mountain and snow to the base like Rose and Heavenly are announcing expanded terrain.  Two different worlds across some mountains. 

Kirkwood had about 3 inches the base and 10 inches at the top and dense giving your legs a burn but nice to turn in some deeper snow.  Upper mountain at Squaw had 4-5 inches of fresh sugary snow this afternoon and was also a lot of fun as the sun came out!  I think I'm going to finish off my day with a beer and watching Hot Dog!

Sunday is sunny and mild with less wind and highs in the 40's, to near 50 at the bases.  

Monday the next storm moves in by afternoon.  We have a low breaking off from a trough moving through to the North that will pull up subtropical moisture as it moves inland.

That will bring in warmer air with high snow levels for Monday into Monday night.  They look to start around 8,000 feet briefly Monday and then jumping to 9,000.   Then falling to 8,000 Monday night.  The low moving inland has cold air from the trough it broke off from.  So as it moves inland it should crash snow levels Tuesday morning.  So we may see a heavy burst of snow even to lake level before the storm clears out Tuesday evening.

We do have a split on the latest model runs for the Tahoe basin from what I can see.  We have the European, Canadian, and NAM models with a high end of up to 1.5 inches of liquid near the crest. 

The GFS has up to 3 inches of liquid near the crest

and the WPC's multi model blended forecast model has the same....

The National Weather Service has a Winter Storm Watch for Tahoe for 1-2+ feet above 8,000 feet.  Averaging in the drier models and with the high snow level start, my forecast is much less, and hasn't changed much from yesterday.

If the GFS is right then this forecast would increase by up to a foot or more up high.  For now I would just lean towards the higher end of the forecast this time as the models tend to trend wetter in the last 24 hours.

It looks like a fairly strong ridge builds in after this storm, so we may have a short mild and dry spell for about 5 days starting next Wednesday.

There is still great model agreement and consistency on a trough pushing into the West Coast by the 15th with a strong Pacific jet stream taking aim at the West Coast.

The operational models continue to show a train of strong cold storms that week.  Seems too good to believe this far out.  Let's hope the forecast holds.  Here is the latest GFS 2 week total precipitation forecast.

From This Morning:

We saw a warm storm move through overnight bring rain and high elevation snow as expected.  I posted an update at 4 a.m. this morning mentioning that the radar was showing the precipitation cutting off much earlier than expected NW of the lake before the colder air could work in. 

 

That is causing a skew in the reports this morning. Also, snow levels didn't drop to 7500' until after the precip ended a little earlier than expected for all locations.  There are few inches here at the base of Kirkwood.  But for the most part the accumulating snows are only above 8k across most of the lake. 

Like the last storm, the lower ski resorts that measure just under 8k are reporting no snow this morning.  At 8k amounts are a bit below forecast with the warm air holding on.  Above 8k, especially at the taller resorts that measure a little above 8k the reports are coming on or above forecast.  So the elevation has everything to do with reports this morning.  The higher you go above 8k the better chance to see 6+ inches.

That is making the keep me honest report a little ugly this morning.  I'm glad I made this statement with the forecast yesterday, "I'm leaning towards the low end forecast of 3-6 inches at 8k".

So overall across the basin it looks like 3-6 inches above 8,000 feet, with 6-10 inches above 9,000 feet.

We have a break tomorrow with some sun possible and highs in the 40's.

Stronger storm still on track for Monday into Tuesday.  We start with high snow levels again Monday but they could crash with the cold front Tuesday morning.  We are expecting over a foot of snow with this storm above 8k and several inches possible above 7k.

I will post another update later today with the updated forecast for the Monday - Tuesday storm.

Stay tuned...BA

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