Monday morning keeps looking better and better...
Interesting how the Sunday storm forecasts have changed so significantly over the last few days. All this moisture was actually part of what had originally been what was the western end ofa long horizontal plume they labeled the Atmospheric River before it buckled into a hump that then caused the big Wed/Thu storm to play out backwards. Now it looks like some crest areas could get over 3 feet with levels lowered to 4k that means really nice dry cold snow up at 8k+. And also means after Monday lower elevation runs would be much more pleasant all next week.
National Weather Service Reno NV
229 PM PST Sat Jan 19 2019
The instability and
dynamics with this storm are impressive, nearly 300J/kg and Lifted
Indices around -2, we could even see some embedded thunderstorms
tomorrow as this storm moves in. The high-resolution models are
now suggesting 3-4 inches of QPF along the Sierra Crest. We have
not gone that heavy in the official forecast, but we have
increased the amounts to near 2.5" along the crest, with around
1-1.5" around the Tahoe Basin itself...
Around 4 PM, snow levels crash down to Lake Tahoe level and down
to valley floors in western Nevada by 10PM Sunday night. Now this
is a precipitous drop in snow levels, an impressive 3000 feet
lower within 6 hours...
Our best estimates for snow totals will be around 4-8" around the
Lake Tahoe Basin (6000-7000ft), with up to 1 to 2+ feet above
7000 feet. If snow levels fall quicker than anticipated, those
numbers could be doubled.
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This was the forecast 4 days ago:
255 PM PST Tue Jan 15
For Sunday-Sunday night, we will have one more storm system to deal
with. This will be a more modest storm by Sierra standards,
although capable of producing some travel impacts in higher
elevations and over main passes primarily Sunday afternoon-evening.
Current projections call for possibly a few inches of snowfall at
lake level, maybe 6-12 inches near the Sierra crest...Light accumulations
are possible for far western NV, up to an inch or two mainly in
the foothills. 1-1.5" around the Tahoe Basin itself.
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And 2 days ago:
743 PM PST Thu Jan 17 2019
A fast-moving wave is projected to move southeastward from off the
Oregon coast through the region Sunday. This wave is appearing more
dynamic than previous runs were showing, with stronger forcing
evident along and ahead of the frontal boundary. Subsequently,
moisture and precipitation chances were increased further...
Preliminary snow totals are generally around 1 foot of snow above
7000 feet along the Sierra crest, a few inches possible after a
rain/snow transition around Lake Tahoe,
20-25mph winds at the top, 26°.
