Jan. 19 2012,   Incline Village, Nevada 

Let the winter begin.

After more than two months with hardly any snow, Tahoe is about to enjoy a white weekend.

The chart below from the National Weather Service shows the precipitation forecast for the next five days. Tahoe is in the zone for about 6 inches of water through Monday. And it now appears that, above about 7000 feet, almost all of that will be snow. That means a total of perhaps 4 feet or more above 8000 feet by Monday.
fivedayprecip
Things should get going late today as the first in a series of storms moves across Northern California and into the Sierra. We should see some strong winds and snow above about 6000 feet by tonight, with 5 to 10 inches of snow above 7000 feet by Friday morning and a few inches around the lake.

The biggest storm in the series will be Friday. This will be wet, warm and windy system. We could see winds in excess of 100 mph at the Sierra Crest. Snow levels will rise as the storm approaches Friday afternoon or Friday evening, perhaps rising above 7000 or 7500 feet. Then they will drop again Friday night. This one should bring another two feet or so above 8000 feet and as much as a foot below the mountain passes. Snow will continue into Saturday, tapering to snow showers by the afternoon. The winds should be easing up by Saturday morning as well.

After a break on Sunday, the coldest of the storms is on track for arrival late Sunday or early Monday. This will be a smaller system, but colder. Snow levels should start out around 6000 or 6500 feet before dropping as the front moves through. It looks like this one has the potential to dump another foot of snow above 7000 feet, with several inches at lake level. But the forecast models are in conflict, and one of the models is already showing this one fading to just a heavy dusting of additional snow.

After that, a ridge of high pressure is forecast to build again over the Pacific, potentially sending us into another dry spell, at least through the end of the month. But that's not certain. It could set up in a place that would still allow some storms to get through.