Tahoe Weather Blog

Apparently 1977 was a brutal drought year. We are on our fourth, but I just read an article that many of the charts are extremely similar to this year. I know this is very little consolation, but in 1977 things changed around the middle to end of February. NOAA is predicting a storm for Tuesday, but I do not see it. I would be very surprised if we pick up even an inch. It will cool, but only slightly. From what I can see, our change looks to be coming around the 10-12th of February. A number of factors are going to affect this change and I will keep an eye on them. Until then, I apologize but not much to say other than to enjoy the beautiful weather. Fantasy Forecast Here is the 30 day precip chart from the European model. Almost all the precip it see's comes starting on the 12th or February. The GFS long range is seeing the same changes. Keep your fingers crossed! Please remember this; averages are made over a very long period of time. Our climate is always changing bu

My hope was a few good storms for the 2nd half of January, however that is not looking so good right now. I have just checked the short, medium and long range models for our area; things look dry especially for the next 10 days. The storm I talked about for the 17th will show up, weaken and barely have an effect on our weather. There will be very little if any precip. What is even more depressing is the long range model, which shows almost no activity for Tahoe in the next 30 days. That has changed from what it was showing. A number of factors are responsible for this dry spell, too many to talk about here. Looking at the precip totals, they are also very depressing, about 30% of average. Could we be in for our 4th straight below average year? A monumental change would need to take place to avoid this. Now the bright side; We will get snow in Feb and March. Hopefully things turn around and we make a nice comeback. I do not believe that over the last 4 years we have changed our cl

If you read my last post, I was tracking a long term possibility of a storm coming in for around the 11th or 12th of January. However, the models are now pointing to our ridge of high pressure stubbornly staying over our area for around a week after that. Here is a look at our current situation: Hard to complain about beautiful weather, but I think we all realize we need some snow. Talking to Sven over at Unofficial Mt. Rose , they have not seen 4 straight dry years. I believe they have lived here nearly forever! That tells me we are due. I know, I sound like a broken record. But if you came here to get a depressing, world ending forecast, you came to the wrong place. Currently, it looks like our conjoined trough will split the ridge way too far north, leaving our section of the ridge, in place. However, it will slightly weaken the ridge which still bodes well for the future. Friends, when this pattern breaks, it will break hard ... I believe that will be this season. What we

Ok, I admit it, I did not see this last slider producing so much snow for the Carson Range. Shame on me. In my own defense, they are tough to predict. The snow to water ratio was very high due to the cold, so the 14 inches received at Mt. Rose was a bit misleading. Nonetheless, a very pleasant surprise! Sliders like this last one present two problems; first they bring in really cold air. I know many of you see that as a benefit, but 8 degrees in Reno is just too cold ... at least for me. Secondly, these are storms that are dropping down from the north, over land, usually packing very little moisture. Our big storms come over sea and pack large amounts of moisture. Sliders such as this usually signify some sort of blocking ridge to our west. As most of you know, this is not good. Especially when we are down for the season in the way of snowfall. The slider aint going to catch us up! Ok, so as you no doubt have heard, we have a large ridge of high pressure to our west that is blockin

Current A powerful cold front is dropping out of the Northwest right through Tahoe. This storm will bring with it heavy snow at times. It will, however, be pretty fast moving. I see every indication that we will be on the upper end or exceed my 6-9 inch prediction of a few days past. Below is the current Satellite. Their is plenty of moisture to tap into. The only thing keeping this from being a Pinneapple express is the lack of a blocking system to stall our front. However, as it is, I see about a foot of snow and maybe even more for Slide Mountain. About the same for the rest of Tahoe as snow levels will be at or below Lake level. Near Term This system will be all done by noon tomorrow and behind it look for high pressure to take over. Do not, however, look for warm temperatures like we have seen this week as it will remain cool until the the next storm moves in next week. Long Term As I mentioned in my last post I am tracking a pretty good system coming our way righ

The word is out. High pressure is coming to Tahoe and will dominate our weather into and maybe through 2015. Part of the problem of having 85,000 readers is they tend to think that anybody, including yours truly, knows what they are talking about when it comes to medium term weather forecasting! Most other forecasters, who undoubtedly spend much of their time on this site, charge their readers by posting annoying adds that allow you to download malware, spyware, etc. I cannot do that. Posting adds on the site and taking revenue would mean I am providing a dependable service. I am not, nobody is, trust me! I actually made the first chairs this morning on the Slide Side of Mt. Rose and the talk of the line was ridge city, or another way to put it, no more snow. I guess after the last few years we are still a bit shell shocked. My last post was perhaps a bit too direct to a public that is almost waiting for the bad news to come. Let me qualify this; the long range forecast shows a dry

I apologize for a busy travel schedule. However, not much has changed since my last post, unfortunately! We have two shots for much needed additional snowfall. One of those is knocking on the door right now. This system is weak but holding together. We can expect perhaps 3-9 inches of snow at Mt. Rose and slightly more near the western crest of the Sierra. There is a very ample moisture tap but not enough strong storms that can tap it and have enough lift to get over the mountains. The "storm of the season", as dubbed by the NWS, brought tremendous precip to California but did not have the lift to get over the Sierra, then took an abrupt turn south. That was very disappointing as that was the only storm with the potential to add significant snowfall. Very painful, all that moisture just 60 miles away! Our next chance of snow comes on Christmas Eve. However, the models are backing off a significant precip event for this. Our problem now is a large ridge of high pressure