Tahoe Weather Blog

San Francisco and most other cities in California will remember 2013 as the driest year ever. Take a look at the following chart: This shows the total rainfall to date and the percentage of normal. San Francisco is among the driest of the dry cities in California. Reno, Carson City and all of Tahoe are experiencing similar numbers. What looked like a decent December a few weeks back has turned dry, like the rest of 2013. Remember the snowy December of 2012. As soon as the year changed, so did the weather. And it hasn't changed back since! We continue to have a ridge of high pressure pushing storms east and north. That trajectory is never good for a major precip event. All of the models and now forecasters are pretty convinced that this pattern will remain in place through the end of 2013. I am starting to hop on that band wagon. However, there is hope. Our biggest, wettest storms have traditionally taken place when a certain condition is present. That condition is a combin...

Here is the bad news, this chart is the EC forecast for total precipitation between now and January 13th: The EC weather model is forecasting around a 1/4 inch of liquid precip during our snowiest time of the year. Now the good news; The EC weather model is forecasting around a 1/4 inch of liquid precip during our snowiest time of the year. Yes, that is correct! This weather model along with the other other weather models have been consistently wrong the entire year. When EC has predicted something, long term, the exact opposite has occurred since last January. The exact opposite of no snow is lots of snow. I will keep an eye out and continue reporting to my faithful readers. In the meantime, do not lose hope, not all is lost ... our snow will come, hopefully sooner rather than later. Stay Tuned ...

The well advertised inside slider brought in some very cold air out of Canada and about 4 inches of snow on the eastern front range. That was a pretty productive slider that produced more precip than I had thought possible. The next chance for snow comes in on Saturday. The models are in agreement that a wave will come from the northwest through our area and produce more snow. Here is a look at that storm on late Saturday morning: This is not a very large storm, but every bit helps. The following chart shows the expected total precip for Saturday and Sunday: Right now it looks like around an inch, more west of the lake, less east of the lake. Based on our cold temps I expect this to be all snow for all of Tahoe. The snow to liquid ratio should be high so I am expecting between 8-16 inches of snow ... possibly slightly more. That should be enough for the fine folks at rose to get NW cranked up and start the season. I am tracking a slightly larger storm for next week ar...

There is a lot of cold air coming our way. We will get our first taste of winter starting on Tuesday. The leading edge of this cold air looks to be our best chance of snow for the next 10 days or so as our very dry pattern continues. High temperatures will not reach freezing on Wednesday and will probably not climb out of the 40's for a couple of weeks. That is the bad news. The good news is the 30 day still looks pretty good. Starting around 12/11 we should start to see the storms make it to our area. EC has been pretty consistent on this December event so keep the faith. Of course around the 10th, you cold wash your car ... that may help too. Here is a look at the 30 day total precip; remember this is liquid precip. With the colder pattern this could translate into quite a bit of snow by the end of the month. Again, we should see storms showing up on the short term weather models in about a week and the fun could get started around the 11th of December. Stay Tuned ...

If you believe the models, which change their mind more than my high school girlfriend, things are not looking good in the near term for any precip at all. We have a storm that is coming in from the west. However, just about the time it see's land, it cuts straight south and will have no effect on our weather whatsoever. I am tracking a storm that could show up in about a week to 9 days that I will talk about next. In the meantime, a weak slider could come into the area and leave a dusting or slightly more next Monday or Tuesday. The best chance I see comes into our area around the 5th of December (one week from Thanksgiving). The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (I oftentimes refer to it as the "EC") forecasts this for a week from Thursday. The EC has this storm coming right over us and it could (I want to repeat could) leave a very welcome foot or two of snow behind in the mountains around Lake Tahoe. I want to remind everybody that my...

As the current storm continues to provide on again off again moisture, I wanted to take a look at our next opportunity for mountain snow. It looks like a weak to moderate system will move in from the west and come inland to our area in about a week. Here is the EC weather forecast for the middle of next week, around Thanksgiving day: The potential exists for a similar event to what we are experiencing now. We are still on track for what looks like a series of large storms for our area starting around the December 9th. Here is a long term forecast for late on the 9th of December: This is a much larger storm than anything we have seen this year. It is projected to make shore in Washington and send heavy precip all the way down the coast to from Northern Washington to Southern California. Three days later around the 12th or 13th of December a smaller system is being projected to come into our area with an ample precip tap: A few days later another storm comes into the...

The latest model runs are in pretty good agreement that this next series of systems, brought in by a split jet-stream that looks to be putting Tahoe in the cross-hairs, should bring some good precip. The big benefactor here will be the Carson Range and Slide Mtn in particular. Snow levels will vary, but it looks like all snow at 8,000 and above. The timing of the systems starts late tomorrow afternoon and lasts through Thursday with on again, off again snow for the Sierra. These storms are weak, but are packing some serious moisture. Some models have 1.5 inches of liquid precip. I believe Slide Mountain will pick up between 12-18 inches of snow (at the top) by Friday morning. Depending on altitude, some areas on the west side of the lake could see 2 feet or more. Hey, better than nothing. Here is a look at the NAM weather model and what we can expect in the way of liquid precip: A small area of 2-2.5 inches west of the Lake. Around 1 inch for the Carson range. I believe those ...