Northstar Hits 100" Mark for the Season!

Post frontal showers yesterday afternoon and the final wave that came thru last night dropped another foot on Northstar bringing the storm total to 20" and the season total to 100"! That includes 18" from Nov. Only need 18 more to hit my 100" Dec. idea and I think we will easily do that by Friday. That will be in only two weeks really. Hopefully this is a sign of the season to come! This time last season we were only up to 50".

Reports from areas along the crest were anywhere from 20-32" from the storm since Sunday. Unofficially here at the office in Truckee I measured 9" & 11" at my house at Northstar. That includes the 6-8" that fell overnight around town. So we got the high end of the projections, with some places more.

We will get a break today and it should be similar to Saturday with some sun and temps right around freezing with light winds. May be the best riding conditions all week if you are a fair weather rider.

On satellite you can see the next storm off the coast of Oregon diving down into Northern CA. The storm is splitting with most of the energy diving into SoCal, but it now looks like it will come far enough inland to give us some snow. Snow should start tonight and last thru the day tomorrow. Temps will be around freezing and snow levels will rise to near 6000 ft. briefly by the afternoon, so it will be a wet snow with not much accumulation in town and up to 6 inches on the mountain. Next storm is right on the heels of the Wed. storm with no break in precip but snow levels crashing and cold air along with heavy snow & strong winds arriving by Wed. night. Snow will last thru Christmas day, with lingering post frontal snow showers and cold air with lows in the single digits and highs in the low 20's thru Friday. Total liquid on the latest models from tonight - Friday is 1.5-1.75 over Tahoe. .5 of that is the Wed. storm which i totaled above. So 1-1.25 at 12:1 ratios in town and 20:1 on the mountain. Will go with 12 inches in town and 15-25 inches on the mountain. That is a storm total of 20-30 inches by Friday. Could be more if post frontal showers linger on Friday like last night. Should be 24-36 inches for areas along the Crest. Would not recommend going over Donner Pass after tomorrow afternoon as there will be blizzard condtions thru Christmas morning.

Over the weekend we have a pattern change to a more zonal flow which will warm temps into the 30's. Should be a nice day on Saturday with increasing clouds ahead of a small wet snowstorm possible for Sat. night. Will not get into details in the extended because the models are all over the place. Will have to see where the tropical activity in the Western Pacific heads and where the ridge sets up. Options are a ridge for the first week of Jan., or more cold storms with more moisture to work with. Let's deal with that after this big Christmas storm.

Will update tomorrow on snow projections. Travel safe. BA