Tahoe Weather Blog

In our continuing series we will talk about a single storm at a time. Right now there are at least a half dozen storms stacked up and ready to blast Tahoe. In today's installment, I will talk about Tuesday's storm. Before I do, Sunday/Monday's storm, appears to have actually gained strength. Tuesday's storm does appear to be the weakest in our series, at least for now. The really heavy stuff will start coming in late Tuesday afternoon. It should snow heavily in the mountains for around 12 hours. After that, we may get a short reprieve before another large storm comes in on Wednesday. Here is a look at Tuesday afternoon: This storm will actually split with half the energy moving into Southern California. The other half will pummel Tahoe. Here is a very interesting graphic. This is the total precipitation for the first two storms in our series. Notice the little white specs. Those are areas of 5-10 inches of liquid precip. There are very many places in the Sierra th

Although a weak system will be coming through our area Saturday night, the first decent storm in what will become a long series of storms will hit our area Sunday Night through Monday. Here are precipitation predictions for that storm: As we can clearly see, most of the Sierra around Tahoe will pick up between 2-4 inches of liquid precipitation. Because the air will be cool, this will translate to between 3-4 feet of snow. That is for the Sierra Crest on the West side of Lake Tahoe moving south. The Carson Range, on the east side of Lake Tahoe, could receive from 1-3 feet of snow. This storm will come in two bursts. The first will be Sunday night starting around 10:00. Then another burst will come in Monday night into Tuesday. The next storm will hit our area Tuesday (1/19), with another on Thursday (1/21). The storm on Thursday looks really impressive. I will talk about these two storms in my next post. Stay tuned ...

First let me say that today's storm has gained strength and moisture. Should be a decent snow event for the Sierra, including the Carson Range. I guess about 18 inches will fall up at Rose. All snow, despite the high levels. This will be all rain for the valley. That should melt most of the remainder of the snow and start to open the golf courses again. Let's talk about next week. If the weather models have it right, this could be the stormiest week I have ever seen since moving here. There are storms literally stacked up for 10 days. Pineapple express? Perhaps. Let's take a little closer look. First, the PNA is moving negative. This is a sure sign of conditions being ripe for stormy weather. Here is the latest NOAA run: The following are GFS predictions for next week, please notice the days: Monday (1/18) Late Tuesday (1/19)    Early Thursday (1/21) Early Saturday (1/23)  Sunday Afternoon (1/24) Tuesday Morning (1/25) I could keep going b

The storm has held together and the conditions are becoming much more ripe for a change in our pattern starting on Monday Afternoon. NOAA has the PNA index moving negative, that is a change. The huge cold front that was blocking everything has moved on ... that is another positive change. El Nino is picking up strength and should begin to have a tremendous impact on our weather. The majority of this system will be arriving on Tuesday. Wednesday would appear to be the powder day on the mountain. However it should be snowing all day on Tuesday. Snow levels will start fairly high 7,500 feet, and drop as the system moves through. I do not see any valley snow. But this storm is tiny compared to what is coming in for the following week. There will be some more weak systems move through next weekend. The following week is shaping up to be a very stormy week with some of the more impressive moisture contents I have seen. Here is what GFS says will happen Janary 20: This is the first of

The models have backed off a drastic pattern shift for next week, however there is a slow shift coming. Next week should bring in a pretty decent storm Monday and Tuesday with at least a foot of snow for the Sierra. The bigger shift will come later in the month as a number of indicators should allow the jet to move storms back through our area. If you live in the east, the massive cold front will break down and finally move on. That should open the door for weather to change in our area too. Truly amazing is our current pattern as the massive ridge to the SW and massive storm to the NW have not moved in about 10 days. Everything is just stuck. That should change, but it won't happen for at least another week and probably closer to two weeks. That means crap air for the valley with more deep inversions and weak pockets of energy coming through about every 4 days. The air down there is terrible right now. However, tomorrow should clear at least some of it out as a weak trough wil

The further north you live the more precip you will get. This storm is shifting to the north and as it comes inland it will weaken significantly (see last post). Right now we are looking at about .5 to .75 inches of liquid precip for the high sierra. That translates into perhaps 6-12 inches of snow. Cut that in half for the Carson Range (Mt. Rose). The heaviest snow will fall after 4:00, so if you get up early on Saturday the should be some nice lines. Here is a closer look. That little area in NW California is what remains of our storm. It will move inland, weaken further and just graze us: Looking ahead, a ridge of high pressure moves in Saturday. This will cause more strong inversions in the valley but should make for some pretty nice days on the mountain. The models are showing a possible change in our pattern starting on or near January 7th. That change could be significant as the models have that lasting at least a week. This change is not showing up on NOA's PNA so I am c

Scott and I went up to Rose this morning and caught around 6-8 inches of fresh, light powder from last nights weak trough. We will take all we can get. We should be looking at another 6-8 inches tonight and then the possibility for a little larger storm on Friday. Here is a look at Friday's forecast: For Friday the potential does exist for some very heavy snow. As the front approaches the coast, I anticipate that it will weaken significantly. Still it should still have plenty of punch remaining. I will try and fine tune the forecast in the next day or so. Similar to last nights system, the storm is actually located quite a bit north and is swinging bands of precip into our area as the cold air mixes with the warm moist air. Tonight's system will be accompanied by high winds over the crest as well as ideal down slope wind conditions for the foothills. At least some of the inversion that the valley is currently suffering through should get wiped out by these winds. Ironically, th