Summer may be just around the corner, but California’s northern Sierra Nevada and the Tahoe Basin continue to experience unsettled weather, with a chance for thunderstorms in the forecast over the next seven days.
“The days we’re keeping an eye on the most are Sunday and Monday,” said Bill Rasch, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. “The biggest threat is brief heavy rain.”
There’s a 20% chance for thunderstorms Thursday through Saturday, with the probability increasing to 50% to 60% on Sunday and Monday. The isolated storm cells are most likely to occur in the afternoon and evenings and in terrain 5,000 feet and above. On Sunday and Monday, thunderstorms are also possible in the Central Valley, including the Sacramento and Redding areas.
“If people hear thunder, we want them to go inside,” Rasch said.
These storms could deliver thunder and lightning, winds up to 40 mph, heavy rain (up to 1 inch in an hour), and hail up to a half inch in size.
“I wouldn’t call them severe,” he said. “When you think about impacts, there’s some brief localized heavy rain. Isolated is a good description of them.”
The chances for thunderstorms come as an area of low pressure sits over Southern California. The system is spinning counterclockwise, pulling moisture from the Great Basin and pushing it into Northern California, Rasch explained.
Rasch said that while fire starts are possible with the thunderstorms, they’re not as huge of a concern as they have been in past dry years. The landscape is still wet, and the mountains still have some snow after the unusually wet winter.
“Typically, we’d be very worried about fire starts, but this year a lot of areas still have snow,” he explained. “The cooler temps are keeping the snowmelt at a slower pace. It has been beneficial in that way.”