Tahoe Weather Blog

As La Nina continues to deepen, so does our dry weather. Generally, we only write columns to talk about future weather pattern changes. However, I noticed a number of forecasters were predicting a return to winter weather next weekend. We are not seeing that. In fact as the Polar Vortex digs deep into the central part of the country, our weather will be above seasonal averages for the most part with high pressure sitting off the coast and blocking everything. Lake Tahoe is west of Los Angeles. That helps a lot when these deep high pressure systems dominate the country, we are outside their influence of bitter cold air. However, we are seeing what should amount to a pattern change. That is the good news. The bad news is that this pattern change is still a few weeks out. As our persistent ridge of high pressure begins to break down, expect things to change. That appears to be occurring around the 30th of January. Of course, predicting weather 2 weeks out comes with risk. We will keep an ...

These systems broke about as bad as possible. Starting with rain at 10,000 feet most of New Years Eve and even New Years day. That put a dent in the snow pack of Mt. Rose. We have several other systems waiting to come in. The snow levels will vary with these systems as well. Saturday January 3rd Storm moves in early Saturday morning. Snow levels look to be around 7,000-7,500. However, there is a large moisture element coming from the south and you can clearly see on this graphic. This is the dynamic we had earlier in the week. For now this should be all snow for Mt. Rose. However, look for some rain shadowing by the Sierra. Sunday January 4th This is our best chance for significant snow. Snow levels should fall to around 6,000. There is still a warm moisture connection, but the cold front has dropped down into the area. Monday January 5th Another storm moves in. NWS calling for the possibility of snow levels falling to the valley floor. However the EC is showing a strong rain shadow ef...