Updated for Christmas Week.  Merry Christmas, Pray for Snow!!!

Dec. 22 2011     

Incline Village is in for a couple of chilly mornings at the end of this week as a blast of arctic air fills in behind a low pressure system that skirted the region as it moved into the Great Basin today. Overnight lows in the single digits, and in some places below zero, are likely tonight and Friday before we see a bit of a warming trend over the weekend. The high winds that raked the Basin Wednesday night and early Thursday should be subsiding by this afternoon.

The big picture remains bleak as far as snow is concerned. A system moving out of the Northwest late Sunday might bring some clouds to the Tahoe Basin but no snow is in the forecast. Another one late Tuesday into Wednesday is more promising. As of now it appears to have the potential to bring at least a dusting of snow, and perhaps several inches on Wednesday. But even the rosiest scenarios have that system topping out at around a foot of snow, and that would be only if everything broke exactly right for us.

The most promising development in the forecast is the chance that a deep low pressure will form in the Gulf of Alaska early next week with a trough extending down into the Pacific Northwest. This would push the jet stream farther south and perhaps finally open up a bit of a track for storms to come our way. But so far, other than the modest system on track for Wednesday, there's nothing firm in the forecast.

The big change we need is a shift in the Eastern Pacific high pressure. That ridge is still pushing everything too far north and into British Columbia before the storms finally drop down into the interior U.S. Until that ridge moves or weakens, Tahoe will remain mostly dry.

 

Thanks Weather Geek!!!!