Don't Like the Rain; Here Comes the Snow!

Heavy rain from 8,500 feet down to the valley floor for the entire Tahoe region. I would not be surprised to see some thunder and lightening as we are now in the most intense precip portion of this particular storm.

That is all going to change.

Starting this afternoon, snow levels will begin to fall. By tomorrow morning all this rain, for all our readers, will be snow.

As usual the snow will be the heaviest in the mountains. Here is a look at tonight around 10:00, notice the blue lines now in our area, that is cold air, the red has been shoved well south:


This very cold trough in the jet will continue to push south until we have snow all the way down to 3,500 feet.

This will turn into a major winter storm and the NWS, rightfully so, is concerned about travel, especially over the passes, tomorrow and Saturday.

I would not be surprised to see Mt. Rose pick up an additional 3-5 feet of snow. The upper layer should be of the champagne powder variety. Here is why this is possible:


I believe the Carson range will pick up an additional 4-6 inches of liquid precip. By tomorrow the snow ratios will start to climb, 15 : 1 by late afternoon. They will go higher by Saturday.

If you live around the lake, expect a major snow event starting this afternoon. You could see as much as 2-3 additional feet of snow before all is said and done.

If you live in the leeward foothills of Reno and Carson City, I would expect another 1-2 feet of snow on top of the slop that is on the ground right now. The valley floor could see 6 inches of snow by Saturday night.

When this system finally moves on early on Sunday morning, there will not be any warm up. In fact cold air will be in place and stay here through at least Friday, Feb 22. We also have another very cold storm on tap for Wednesday the 20th of Feb. Here is a look at the forecast for Wednesday afternoon:


You can see just how cold it is going to get. Even our friends down in SoCal are going to feel the bite of this one!

With this cold storm and the cold air that will stay in place, expect near perfect, mid-winter conditions at all Tahoe Ski Resorts.

Finally, we see a much drier trend starting around Saturday, Feb 23 as a ridge locks in off the coast and our temps finally start to approach average for this time of year:


That is unless Ma Nature decides to remind us again, just who is in charge!


Stay Tuned!