Carson City area weather: Storm to bring strong wind and rain to valleys, snow in the Sierra
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 01/03/2021 - 12:25pm
A winter storm will bring a round of strong and possibly damaging winds for most areas, with heavy wet snow for the Sierra late Sunday night into Tuesday morning and mostly rain down to the valley floors.
Significant travel delays and chain controls should be expected into Monday evening in the higher elevations. Rain showers are forecast for western Nevada cities with little to no snowfall expected, according to the National Weather Service in a Sunday morning briefing.
A Wind Advisory is in effect from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday for the greater Reno, Carson City and Carson Valley areas. Forecasters say winds will be out of the southwest winds 20 to 35 mph with gusts up to 55 mph expected. Wind prone areas such as Washoe Valley, Galena and portions of the Surprise Valley gusting to 75 mph. The strongest winds most likely during Monday afternoon.
The weather service advises that gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.
Meanwhile, the storm will bring snow to the Sierra and Lake Tahoe Basin, and rain with a chance of snowfall down into the valleys. For the foothills west of Reno, Carson City and Carson Valley, 0.10 to .25 of rainfall could develop with less than 0.10 of in inch of remain for the main surrounding cities. However, forecasters do acknowledge that there is a 40 percent possibility of rainfall above a quarter inch for Reno and Carson.
Snow levels will start near 6000-7000 feet from north to south, and remain near these levels until the front passes. This will keep many Sierra valley locations, including Lake Tahoe level, as rain for a majority of the event, with wet snow mixing in during heavier bands. Heavy Sierra cement snow amounts of 10-18 inches above 7,000 feet still look likely, with snowfall rates exceeding 2" an hour at times over main passes combined with strong winds to produce whiteout conditions.
From 6,000 to 7,000 feet from Tahoe to Mono County and above 5500 feet in northeast Calif., 2-8 inches are likely depending on the time of changeover, with perhaps an inch down to 5000-5500 feet. No snow accumulation is expected for the lower western Nevada valleys, according to the weather service Sunday morning forecast discussion.
After this storm exits Monday evening, a shortwave ridge on Tuesday will bring a dry day with much less wind and near average temperatures in the 40s.
From Wednesday on, several shortwaves will move through the Pacific Northwest during the second half of the week, although the trend over the last few days has been farther north with less and less moisture moving into the Sierra and western Nevada. The changes have been minimal since Saturday's forecast, although there is an increasing chance of light snow in the Sierra Friday.
The first wave moves through the region Wednesday into Thursday morning, bringing light snow to the Sierra and increasing ridge winds. Latest blended guidance is only showing a few inches of snow for the highest elevations of the Sierra above 7,000 feet hrough Thursday morning and a light dusting of snow down to around the 5,000 foot level.
Forecasters note there is still a low, 20 percent chance of seeing greater than 6 inches of of snow above 7000 feet but that trend has been decidedly less over the last few days. A secondary wave will move through the region on Friday, bringing additional light snow amounts to the Sierra passes, generally only an inch or two.
Check the latest forecast at weather.gov/Reno and check road conditions with Caltrans and NDOT.
For the latest weather discussion go here. For Carson City area updates see CarsonWeather.com.
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