Weather Will Change but Don't Expect any Major Snowstorms

We have had a beautiful run of weather and that is going to change. However, the long term snow pattern does not appear to be in the cards, at least not yet.

A strong cold front will bring very little precip but lots of cold air into the Tahoe region tomorrow night. Here is a look at the precip forecast for very late tomorrow night into early Wednesday morning.


Unfortunately, not a lot of moisture is associated with this system. I am guessing 2-6 inches for Slide Mountain by Thursday night.

When this system exits, it will leave lots of cold air in place. This should give the folks at Mt. Rose a chance to finally start making snow. However, I am seeing another warm period that could last for a few weeks starting next week.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. A second system will come into the area very early Sunday morning. This system will have a better moisture tap. It will warm things up and snow levels could be a bit tricky. Right now it looks like 7,000 feet, but that could go up. Here is a look at the forecast for late on Saturday night:


I do see some shadowing with this system, so the Sierra will see more precip than the Carson range. My best guess for precip as of now for Mt. Rose is 4-8 inches. So again, nothing epic in either of these two storms.

By the following Tuesday (1 week from tomorrow), high pressure will be firmly in control, which is really bad news as all storms will be shoved well to our north and temps will be mild again. Take a look:



This sort of pattern leads to the 30 day forecast model basically saying we are going to be well below average insofar as precip is concerned. Here is the 30 day forecast for total precipitation:


Very depressing for all winter sports enthusiasts.

The one silver lining is a NOAA forecast, which appears to me to be an outlier. Or it is over estimating these two storms that I have been talking about. This is the 8-14 day precip forecast:


In addition, Paul Huntington submitted this report:

The major sites are CPC, National Weather Service, Joint Typhoon Center, and El Nino/ENSO Discussion. The Internet has been a game changer and independent forecasting is becoming a bigger role in our understanding of weather and I think will eventually help create scientific catalogues of how the ocean atmosphere and sun interact within these complex systems? Anyway the schematic below shows that the wet pattern is on the progressive side and is extremely good news for our part of planet earth!! Models should start seeing things pretty clearly as the pattern we are entering is about as normal as I have seen since 2010!! Finally our climate system has broken out of the closed loop between the MJO (intensity and spatial placement) and suppressed warmer Davidson current. The Davidson current did rebound with the Super Nino but again the jet pushed northward with the hyper active ITCZ in the West Pacific that interfered with the El Nino in February. Ninos that really flood California need the ITCZ to act up in the East equatorial Pacific along with West Pacific being less active, and the Indian ocean dipole in positive or neutral to allow the low pressure along the ITCZ belt to oscillate more freely finding a happy place above the warm east Pacific equatorial oceans.

Presently, now that the ocean atmospheric coupling is in place for a non el nino year the Northern latitudinal planetary waves and lower pressure gradients should begin to find a quasi equilibrium at a lower latitude and the North Pacific high should really start to weaken. Hard to believe but we might see some normal weather for a few months??

Ok, that is a lot to take in. Nothing is certain and we all know that Mother Nature will do what she pleases. I hope to print a new forecast for more winter weather soon.

Stay Tuned ...