Fresh snow arrives across the western Alps tonight and continues into Friday, then a much stormier pattern takes over from Tuesday into next weekend. Snow levels through the first wave hover around 1,200 to 1,500 meters, so upper mountain terrain stays all snow while the lowest villages can see mixed precipitation. Snow quality with this first system looks mostly moderate, with SLRs commonly in the 10-14:1 range and pockets of lighter snow in higher terrain.
It's turned into an unusually dry winter for Northern California, and that pattern, thanks to a ridge of high pressure, is going to continue for at least the first 10 days of February. As the Chronicle meteorology team tells us, the dry and balmy conditions will be with us through Super Bowl Weekend and beyond, continuing a pattern that has left the Sierra snowpack mighty low.
