One Flake Of Snow In The Forecast

The NOAA Sacramento office probably went overboard in it’s latest forecast for snow in the Tahoe region tonight. The widely distributed graphic below indicates that we could see some snow over the higher passes of the Sierra by Wednesday and Thursday. It’s not going to be enough to do any skiing, but it beats the 70° temperatures we saw earlier in the week.

It looks like most of the wetness will stay west of the crest, or more likely, west of the Sacramento Valley. In the Tahoe region, precipitation totals on the first wave are expected to be in the tenth of an inch range, or less. The wettest model I could find was the NAM, which suggested up to a quarter of an inch was possible. The advertised cooler temperatures did not arrive yet, although the high winds have arrived.

Friday’s system seems a bit stronger, as in we may see three flakes, which is three times more snow! The longer range GFS is beginning to look a bit wetter in bringing the trough a bit farther south than runs earlier this week. That brings us a better chance of getting a bit more moisture in for the end of the month. The Euro model has not bought into that solution yet. It shows only minor chances of rain and snow into November. All of the models are still extremely volatile as we transition from summer patterns into a winter pattern.

We keep hearing commentary that we are doomed to another year of drought as the snow has not been falling yet. This lead me to learning some new vocabulary in the discussion at WeatherWest.com this week.

1. The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important.

Yes, just because we are all stinging from three dry years in a row, it’s not doomed to happen again. The atmospheric and oceanic conditions are not the same as they were a year ago.  While we are still looking neutral for ENSO (El Niño), the positive PDO signal brings more hope that we will not face another drought year. By this time last year, we were already seeing some signs that the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge was building in to block storms. We currently have a very large trough in the Pacific, which is being held in place by a ridge over the mid-US, which is fairly typical for this time of year, but not the same as last year.

For now, cooler temperatures and light showers should lead to some nice brown pow conditions for mountain bikers. Winter is coming…