Near Misses then Christmas Day Storm

Our weather pattern continues to be active. As high pressures keeps storms north of us, a few of those storms will give us glancing blows. Then on Christmas day, the chance exists for a decent storm. To this point, we have not seen a giant La Nina storm, but we believe that it is coming, probably in January.

Here is one of those near misses as a storm delivers us a glancing blow on late Monday / Early Tuesday (12/21), the NWS is more impressed with this storm than we are, so the chance does exist for some accumulation. From what we are seeing, just a few inches of mountain snow at best as the cold front drops temps:

Notice the blocking ridge of high pressure. That is going to keep the storms north of us.

However, that ridge is going to get knocked south and severely flattened. This will allow storms to drop south and into the Tahoe area. The first of those storms will arrive around Christmas Eve and last through Christmas day:

You can see another storm right on the heels of the Christmas storm. That will arrive around the 28th of December:

These storms will be all snow for most Tahoe resorts. Only the lowest elevations could possibly see some rain, but that appears unlikely at this juncture.

As it appears now, these storms are not the big one we are looking for, but combined they could produce 2-4 additional feet of snow, which will open up more terrain all over Tahoe.

Stay Tuned ...