Tahoe Weather Blog

We have a series of very warm storms approaching the Tahoe area. We talked about this in our last post. These storms and the associated precip are born in the South and West and are not working with much cold air. That will do two things: limit the power of the storms and bring mostly rain below 8,000 feet starting later today (Sunday 12/17). Mt. Rose is usually the big winner in the El Nino years. Of course the exception is that these storms oftentimes are not powerful enough to stay completely in tact when crossing the Western Sierra Crest. So the Carson Range and Mt. Rose in particular can get shadowed out. That is what is going to happen this coming week. Notice the precipitation is staying mostly to the west of Lake Tahoe. Some will make it over, but the higher elevations on the western side of the lake will pick up more precipitation. Much of this is due to a week storm that really has no cold air to work with as it moves on shore. It will actually move up and down the coast befo

We predicted above average snowfall for the year. I am sure that most readers are thinking we are crazy. This has been a slow start to say the least. That is about to change, at least precipitation wise. A series of warmer storms will pull moisture from the tropics and deposit it all over California and Northern Nevada. The fun gets started a week from today. Remember these are very warm storms and snow levels will most likely be above Lake Tahoe (6,400) feet. Monday December 18th: Friday December 22nd Christmas Day A couple of things with noting here: These storms are progressively turning colder. This is a storm train where the storms are also getting stronger. We are looking through Christmas Day, but this pattern is showing no signs of changing. These storms are typical of El Nino, in that they are warmer and not quite as strong as the storms we were seeing last year. They are also more frequent which can lead to heavy precipitation with very little letup, sometimes for weeks. Fina