Anyone planning to cross the Sierra on Friday, Nov. 13 is looking at a Winter Storm Warning that the National Weather Service in Reno has hung over the Greater Lake Tahoe Area, with about a foot of snow forecast above 7,000 feet and up to 20 inches on the crest west of the lake. The office’s afternoon forecast discussion, issued at 2:33 p.m. PST on Thursday, Nov. 12, starts the warning at 10 a.m. Friday and runs it to 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14.
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Forecasters expect the snow to arrive in bands heavy enough to change a drive in minutes. Rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour are forecast to cut visibility sharply, and a brief burst near 3 inches per hour is possible right along the crest. Wind comes first and snow rides in behind it, a sequence that matters for anyone with a Friday afternoon plan.
Warning zones and the Friday-to-Saturday clock
Reno’s afternoon package lists three warning zones. California zone 072 and Nevada zone 002, which together make up the Greater Lake Tahoe Area around Incline Village, South Lake Tahoe, Tahoe City and Truckee, are covered from 10 a.m. Friday to 10 a.m. Saturday. California zone 073, Mono County, begins later, at 1 p.m. Friday, and carries the same Saturday 10 a.m. end. Both are spelled out in the office’s Nov. 12 forecast discussion.
Inside those windows the forecast narrows further. The heaviest Sierra snow is expected from about 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. around Tahoe and from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Mono County, with showers lingering into early Saturday. Western Nevada is a different story, since most of the Reno-Carson corridor sees rain on Friday afternoon and evening, with the biggest totals over the foothills. Dry weather settles over the range from Saturday afternoon.
Snow totals, crest amounts and the Donner and Echo Summit odds
The lead figure from the Reno forecasters is about 12 inches above 7,000 feet in the Tahoe zone, rising to as much as 20 inches on the crest west of the lake. The office also gave probabilities, which are more useful to a driver than a single total: a 55 to 70 percent chance of at least 8 inches at Donner and Echo Summits through Saturday morning, and 70 to 90 percent on parts of the crest. At lake level, the chance of 8 inches stays below 10 percent.
Mono County is forecast to see its own gradient. Snow levels drop toward 6,000 feet late Friday, and the discussion calls for 2 to 4 inches at June Lake, 3 to 6 inches in Mammoth Lakes and 1 to 2 feet near the crest.
The forecast changes character over short distances. A driver leaving Reno on Friday afternoon meets rain on the Nevada side, with the foothills getting the highest totals, then climbs into snow somewhere on the way up toward Truckee and Donner Summit. The Tahoe-zone peak window of 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. overlaps the Friday commute and early evening, and Mono County’s later window of 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. lands over the dinner-hour drive into Mammoth Lakes and June Lake. Skiers headed for Saturday morning first chair are the group most exposed to the 10 a.m. Saturday finish, since snow showers linger into early Saturday after the main band moves out.
Wind gusts of 45 to 55 mph and a 70 mph pocket near Lee Vining
Snow is only half of the hazard. Reno’s forecasters expect south to southwest gusts of 45 to 55 mph in many exposed valleys on Friday, with pockets reaching 70 mph in places such as Lundy Canyon and Lee Vining, and a Wind Advisory covers the valleys. Blowing snow on top of falling snow is what turns a 1-inch-per-hour band into a whiteout on open stretches of Interstate 80 and U.S. 395.
The national picture agrees. The Weather Prediction Center, in a short-range discussion issued at 4:43 p.m. EST on Nov. 12, called for heavy snow along the Sierra Nevada and noted that Winter Storm Warnings were in effect for parts of the range in California, with a front moving onshore across the West Coast on Friday. The Reno office’s own warning products carry the zone-by-zone wording, and the NWS Reno office page posts any changes.
That same discussion from the Weather Prediction Center expects rain with embedded thunderstorms along the coast through Saturday and higher-elevation snow from onshore flow, which is the larger setup feeding the Sierra totals. The Reno forecasters, working from the same pattern, kept their Saturday-afternoon dry-out in place for the Sierra and western Nevada, so the warning is built around a single concentrated burst, not a multi-day soaking.
What remains unsettled is how much of the crest total lands in the first hours versus the tail of the storm, and whether the Donner and Echo Summit odds climb or fall in the next update. Reno’s forecasters put those chances at 55 to 70 percent as of the Nov. 12 package, a range that can move when a warning is re-timed, extended or trimmed.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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