Carson City weather: Flood watch issued with coming atmospheric river storm
A strong Pacific storm system will make its way into the Sierra and Carson City region beginning late Thursday, bringing snow and heavy rain with a potential for flooding in the region, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flood watch.
High confidence remains for significant precipitation amounts expected from the moderate atmospheric river system between Friday and Saturday for the Sierra Crest, the Lake Tahoe Basin and western Nevada. The flood watch areas includes: the greater Reno, Carson City and Carson Valley areas, portions of California and western Nevada, greater Lake Tahoe area, Mono, Lassen, Eastern Plumas and Eastern Sierra counties.
The Carson River as well as the Truckee and Susan rivers are expected to see rapid rises and will likely near monitor stage. The greatest uncertainty for main stem river flooding is on the Carson and Susan rivers which have minimal flood controls and can make for dramatic changes in the event of a heavy down flow of precipitation and runoff, according to the weather service.
The bulk of the precipitation will move in on Friday dumping between 2-5 inches of water along the Sierra Crest, 2-3 inches in the Tahoe Basin, and 0.5 to 1 inch for western Nevada.
As of now, there is low confidence regarding where the snow levels will be, but widespread travel impacts are expected, especially for the mountain passes. There is a Winter Storm Watch for much of Lake Tahoe and the Sierra from late Thursday night until Saturday afternoon.
Flooding will also be something to be concerned about for lower elevation streams and creeks along with areas of western Nevada where trapped water has been creating issues with past storm events. Information on the flood watch can be found here and approaching storm will be monitored here. For up-to-the-minute Carson City forecasting see CarsonWeather.com.
Check back for updates.
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