Carson City area weather: Slight chance of showers Thursday, much colder into weekend
Sunny and mild daytime temperatures will make for near-perfect driving conditions across northern Nevada and Sierra during the pre-Thanksgiving travel period, according to the National Weather Service. A cold front may bring a slight chance of showers and increased breezes for Thanksgiving Day with colder temperatures behind it.
For Wednesday, temperatures will warm several degrees each day although stubborn inversions in some of the lower western Nevada valleys may limit the warmup, forecasters said. High temperatures in some of the higher Sierra valleys may actually be near or even above those of the lower valleys.
For the Carson City area, daytime highs will be near 60 on Wednesday and around 50 Thursday, according to the weather service. For the Lake Tahoe Basin, temperatures will be in the low to mid 50s Tuesday and Wednesday and the low to mid-40s Thursday.
For Thanksgiving Day into the weekend, a trough dropping southward into the Intermountain West will bring a big cool-down as north-northeast flow returns to the Great Basin, NWS forecasters said.
Other than a 20 to 25 percent chance of light showers accompanying the front, mainly to the north and east of Reno Thanksgiving Day, the pattern will be a dry and cool one. Temperatures will struggle to get out of the 40s Friday through Sunday with hard freezes at night for all areas including the Reno urban center. See NVroads.com for area travel information.
For Friday through Sunday, it is going to be quite cold as northeast flow ushers in colder air on the back side of the broad upper low centered over the eastern Great Basin and central Rockies. Low temperatures will fall into the teens with a few single digits while highs struggle to reach the low-mid 40s for a few hours each afternoon. Brisk east winds and cold temperatures will make for frigid conditions in the high Sierra, where wind chill readings could drop below zero at times, maybe as low as minus 10.
Beyond the holiday weekend, some weather models suggest a potential return to a more active pattern the first week of December, though at this time there are not any obvious signals for a big storm, forecasters said.