Where's the Big One?

Going to get a break for Sunday & Monday before some more weak systems move through Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday we begin the same setup as two weeks ago where a low pressure will setup in the Northeast Pacific and spin several waves of moisture into CA. Like the last series of storms there won't be a big storm that will dump several feet in a day, but a prolonged period of snow that will add up to several feet going through next weekend and into the following week.

The MJO has stalled in the Western Pacific, and the PNA hovers near nuetral going into the second week of February and towards mid-month. This should allow the stormy pattern to continue.

One thing I am watching is the AO (Arctic Oscillation) is going to head towards another extremely low negative valued over the next couple of weeks. This will send more record breaking cold into the country. The NAO is also going to trend negative towards mid-month. This could lead to another blocking pattern with cold air locked in on the East coast and a ridge off the West coast going into the third week of February.

In the latest El Nino posting by the NWS, the El Nino conditions have begun to fade. Colder than normal areas of water have actually begun to form in the equatorial Pacific. At the rate they are fading the El Nino should be back in the weak category in the next couple of weeks. The benefit for us would be that the warm water would continue to energize the jetstream, but the storm track would stay a bit further North intstead of diving deep into Southern CA as it did last week. Last couple of moderate El Ninos during a cold Pacific Cycle that faded out going into the spring ended up bring us above normal snowfall in Tahoe.

The updated 3 month outlook from the NWS, which shows us in above normal precip Feb-April, is on the "Weather Charts" tab on the main site. The updated Truckee temps chart is available as well. Truckee ended up over 6 degrees below avg. temps in December making the 10 year average 1.5 degrees below average. January precip and temp discussion will be out early next week...BA

"Great effort springs naturally from a great attitude." Pat Riley