March Looks Snowier

Starting to get pretty excited about the possibilities in March. First, we need to get through the mild weather through early next week.

We have some clouds today from the warm system moving into the Pacific NW. Those will clear out for Friday and Saturday with sun and highs up into the 50's. For Sunday the ridge will move East allowing a quick moving storm to move into the Pacific NW. It will come far enough South to get some precip into the Tahoe Basin.

The system will be trying to pull in some subtropical moisture but it looks very limited.  Current model runs show a dusting up to 3 inches on the mountain.There is a still a chance the amounts could come back up a little if the system pulls in more moisture or pushes a bit further South. 

The ridge builds back in Monday with mild temperatures.  This will be short-lived however as low pressure coming under a block over Alaska is able to dig off the West Coast with the ridge North of Hawaii. It will be able to pull in some subtropical moisture and will push a front and precip into CA as early as Tuesday afternoon. 

We will see snow with the front Tue night into Wednesday and more snow with the center of the low pressure moving into CA through Thursday. Taking an average of current model runs it looks like we could see 12-18 inches on the mountain.

Some forecast models show another storm diving in right on the heels of the first storm next Friday.  This morning's runs show another foot of snow possible for next Friday with the second storm. If this were to happen the 3 day storm totals would be more significant with 2-3 feet for the mountain.

Even more encouraging is the agreement among the forecast models in the long-range. The last several runs of most forecast models have a ridge for about 5 days after the storms next week. Then they have the ridge setting up near the Aleutians with a cold low setting up off the coast of the Pacific NW associated with the Polar jet and a cold trough dropping down the West Coast. Then a large low sitting North of Hawaii feeding the subtropical towards the West Coast. The two merge to bring a prolonged snowfall event to the Sierra.

Of course this is still two weeks away so it could easily change. But it is encouraging to see signs of a large scale pattern change for the West Coast for March that could breed some big snows.