TAHOE BASIN, Calif./Nev. — Tahoe’s early-season snow outlook is off to a disappointing start, with no measurable snowfall in the past 10 days — and no relief expected for at least another 10. As of Monday morning, nearly every forecast model shows dry weather through at least Friday, Dec. 12.
Still, ski areas are making the most of what they can.
Snowmaking takes center stage
“The good news is that temperatures dropped just enough overnight that it is near to below freezing from top to bottom for most mountains,” said OpenSnow forecaster Bryan Allegretto. “Looking around the lake at ski area cams, it looks like they are blasting away, trying to make as much snow as possible.”
With natural snowfall off the table, snowmaking remains the region’s best hope for fresh coverage. Allegretto notes that snowmaking conditions will be marginal early in the week, briefly favorable midweek, and then unfavorable again by the weekend as milder Pacific air moves in.
By Thursday, the region warms again, with highs returning to the 40s and nearing 50 degrees at lower elevations through the weekend. Skies are expected to remain partly to mostly sunny throughout the week.
Those warmer temperatures may persist into next week — even overnight — delaying any meaningful cooldown until closer to mid-month.
“Hopefully, by midweek, the ski areas that aren’t open yet can make enough snow to open by the end of the week, as they are hoping to,” said Allegretto. “But we need natural snow and a lot of it.”
Long-range outlook: The “Fantasy Range”
Beyond Dec. 12, models hint at the possibility of storms arriving closer to mid-month. But Allegretto cautions that anything more than 10 days out falls into what meteorologists call the “Fantasy Range” — a period where models lose reliability and trends become speculative.
There is at least a sliver of optimism: the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), a large-scale tropical pattern that can influence storm tracks, may shift into a more active phase during the second half of December, potentially helping steer storms farther south toward the Sierra.
For now, Tahoe is in what appears to be a three-week dry spell that started around Nov. 22.
