With the holiday season in full swing, we at Elements would like to wish you a very happy and SAFE holiday! With that wish of having a safe holiday and the temptation to travel to cooler climates with the entire family at an all time high, we advise against giving into that temptation.
Starting Tuesday, December 21, 2021, through the New Year we are going to see a substantial increase in winter weather. By that we mean that there will be yet another ‘atmospheric river’ heading in with a strong promise of tough traveling conditions that not even an ice road trucker would give seconds thoughts to driving in. If you want a more broken down and exact synopsis of this oncoming storm then please enjoy this forecast courtesy of the scientists at the National Weather Service and Open Snow.
Beneficial Snowpack Boost, but Detrimental Travel Headaches:
- In the Sierra and for passes in northeast CA- major travel disruptions, very long travel times, and possible periodic road closures are all probable.
- For the foothills and lower valleys of western NV- rain or a rain/snow mix Thursday. Snow levels drop more with increasing potential for travel disruption due to snow by Christmas Eve.
- This large upper low will be impacting much of the west, particularly CA and NV, so stay up-to-date on the weather and road conditions if holiday travel takes you out of or into these regions.”
We will first experience a warmer weather system with slightly higher snow levels from Tuesday through Wednesday night, and then a colder period Thursday into Friday night. Then the rest will be pushed into the Extended Forecast section. This means you may have a good driving window from now through Tuesday morning.
However, the storm will then begin to pick up come Tuesday afternoon; the gusty winds will pick up and be reaching 60-70+ mph over the ridge tops and 90-100+ mph for Wednesday.
Come Tuesday evening we will see snow at lake level that may be washed away by a wet and gusty Wednesday with rising snow levels and then snow dropping back to and below lake level on Thursday through Friday night and Saturday as well. The snow doesn’t stop Saturday morning and could continue Christmas Day into next Sunday as another cold system drops down from the north.
We have 84 inches reported so far this month. We only need 80 inches to break into the top 10 snowfall months since 1970.
We wish you a safe and warm happy holiday season!
All The Best,
Elements Mountain Co.
