Carson City area weather: Gusty winds and rain Wednesday into Thursday, snow in Sierra
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Mon, 11/13/2017 - 12:25pm
While conditions remain cool and breezy, the Carson City area and the Sierra will see an active weather pattern later this week, according to the National Weather Service.
The first system will impact the region mainly north of Carson City on Monday and Monday night. There's a slight chance of rain for Carson City. The biggest impact appears to be gusty winds along US-395 with peak gusts 45-60 mph in wind prone locations from Lassen County through western Nevada.
Gusts should be limited to 35-45 mph elsewhere, including US-395 through Mono County. Not much in the way of precipitation is expected with the system, with around six inches of snow along the Sierra crest above 7,000 feet. Travelers should expect wet and/or snow covered roads over the Sierra passes for the commute hours Monday night and early Tuesday morning.
A stronger and wetter low pressure system will impact the Sierra and portions of western Nevada, arriving Wednesday and Thursday, bringing periods of heavy rainfall and high elevation snowfall. A Winter Storm Watch is in effect for Lake Tahoe and Sierra from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday night.
Western Nevada may see impacts more from strong gusty winds and will remain shadowed from the heavier rainfall until the arrival of a strong cold front Thursday morning.
Snow levels in the Tahoe Basin could be around 7,500-8,000 feet during the bulk of the precipitation through Wednesday evening. Current timing has the cold front dropping snow levels to pass level early Thursday morning where a change over to snowfall will occur but will also see precipitation intensity diminish. Mono County snow levels look to be in the 8,500 foot vicinity through the heaviest precipitation Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
There's around a 50 percent chance of rain for the Carson City area on Wednesday, a 60 percent chance Wednesday night and 80 percent chance on Thursday.
As far as snow with the system, 1 to 2 feet is expected around 8,000 feet, but areas between 6500-7500 feet in the Tahoe area are trending towards more rainfall than snowfall with about 2-4 inches of accumulation possible after the cold front moves through Thursday.
Strong winds will also accompany this storm with the main window for gusty winds looking to occur Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning.
Winds across the Sierra will be strong and gusts over 100 mph are expected. Widespread gusts through Sierra valleys and western Nevada valleys will see gusts in the 40-50 mph range, but latest model guidance does show some potential for stronger gusts in the 50 to 60 mph range.
See CarsonWeather.com for the latest graphs, stats and radar.
