When it comes to holiday travel, snow can cause some big problems.
Living in a mountainous area, snow is more likely here than most flat areas throughout the country.
Snow is also much more likely in the Sierra than in Reno, and in the hills compared to the Reno Airport.
Almost a tenth of an inch of rain fell at the Reno Airport on Thanksgiving, but no snow in the lowest elevations. Snow did fall along Mt. Rose Highway and in eastern Nevada though.
Ninety percent of the last seventy Thanksgivings that have data have been free of snow, either too warm for snow or too dry.
Five percent of those years saw snow but there were no accumulations, and 1-3” inches fell on the other five percent.
Each time it did snow on Thanksgiving at the Reno Airport it's been less than four inches over the past seventy years.
The chances for snow are slightly higher in Tahoe City. It’s snowed almost half of the last seventy years in Tahoe City.
Data is missing for a handful of years, but it snowed over a few inches eighteen times in Tahoe City since 1953.
Going forward, the weekend will be dry, sunny, and cold. Good news for travelers, roads will fine through at least early next week.
The low that moved through Northern Nevada on Thanksgiving is moving east, and the flow behind it is from the east.
An east wind this time of year typically keeps Reno cold. Lows will be in the teens and highs will be in the lower 40’s this weekend.
Communities around Lake Tahoe could even drop in the single digits this weekend.
Sunshine prevails this coming week with models hinting at a more active weather pattern the first week of December with the bulk of the stormy weather staying to our north.
There is not a lot of agreement with the models, so stay tuned for more weather information. According to the Climate Prediction Center, northern Nevada is leaning wetter than normal November 30th through December 4th.
