Carson City area weather: Valley rain and Sierra snow ahead this week
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Mon, 01/29/2024 - 12:10pm
Sunshine and warm spring-like temperatures will continue for Carson City and surrounding counties into the midweek, with a shift expected to bring gusty winds, valley rain and Sierra snow into the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
In a nutshell, NWS forecasters said in the latest weather discussion that the Sierra and lower western Nevada valleys will see an increased potential for mostly rain and snow showers from the weather systems, with a potential for snow down to the valley sometime after Friday.
For the first part of the week, warm, mild conditions continues through Tuesday with daytime highs pushing into record territory as well as overnight lows, anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees above average. Daytime highs for lower valleys will peak in the 60s and with Sierra locations seeing rather mild 50s.
The edge of the first system will begin to move into the Sierra late Tuesday into Wednesday, bringing gusty winds of 80 mph to 90 mph overnight and into the valleys later with gusts between 30 mph and 40 mph across the Carson City area, Carson Valley and Washoe Valley.
Sierra snow
The incoming storm is considered, at this time a low-end strong atmospheric river bringing liquid precipitation of around 1 inch to 1.25 inch at Truckee and South Lake Tahoe through Friday, NWS forecasters said. Snow levels will be between 7,000 to 7,500 feet bringing heavy/wet high elevation snowfall across the Sierra Crest overnight Wednesday through Thursday, forecasters said.
Weather models show the highest snowfall rates of 1 inch to 2 inches an hour as snow-levels also drop to 5,500 to 6,000 feet, amounting to 12-18 of accumulated snow above 7,000 with up to 2-plus along the higher Sierra elevations from the Lake Tahoe Basin south along the eastern Sierra. Higher passes along the US-395 corridor in Mono County look to have a 60 to 80 percent chance for accumulated snow of 8-10 overnight Wednesday into Thursday night.
Valley rain and snow
Western Nevada valleys will also see precipitation spillover though much of Thursday with a transition to more showery conditions through Friday, anywhere between .25 to .35 of an inch. Where the concentration will be is speculative but check back for updates.
Going into the weekend, the weather looks to be unsettled, with the current El Nino period looks to draw an extended version of the winter Pacific Jet toward the southern margins of the West Coast, forecasters said.
Weather models show temperatures dropping as the system on track is a much colder air mass. What this means a probable return to more winter-like conditions across the region, forecasters said. Stay tuned.
