Snow?

With all the talk of snow in the mountains for this weekend, it is time to take a closer look.

As anticipated, a warm front passed through the mountains last night with heavy rain and mild temperatures left in its wake. The leading edge of the approaching cold front made land fall this morning and is expected to reach the mountain later today.

Once the front moves through temperature will fall. The approaching cold air is well defined in the 850mb model below. Current freezing level models have the snow line around 3500’ by late tonight, and then fluctuating between 3500 and 4500’ through the weekend.

As with most cold fronts, the main bulk of moisture leads the frontal boundary with a cool unstable air mass trailing behind. There should be no exception to that rule with showers developing behind this front. These showers could be strong with building cumulus clouds and thunderstorms imbedded.

There is a moisture stream feeding in from the SW above the front that will be interesting to watch.  It can be seen below (40degree lat. line) it will be fascinating to see whether this gets cut off, or is allowed to continue feeding into the PNW.

The best chance of snow at Pass level will be during the early morning hours on Saturday. Snow accumulations 4-6”, it may be possible to receive a few more inches throughout the weekend with totals ranging between 6-10”. Precipitation diminished to light showers on Sunday/Monday.