July 21, 2021
Typical summer weather continues with slight warm-ups and cooldowns along with dry conditions and afternoon breezes. We saw a fire south of Lake Tahoe (Tamarack Fire) explode in size over the last several days. There is also a bigger fire to the north (Dixie Fire). With the fires to the north and south and the predominant wind direction being southwest most of the smoke has steered clear of the Tahoe Basin.
Overnight into the morning hours, we can see lighter and more variable winds that allow some smoke to wander into the Tahoe Basin, but then it blows out by the afternoon. Typical afternoon southwest winds are expected to continue through the weekend, with gusts of 15-20+ mph on the lake causing some choppy water away from the west shore.
The weather pattern looks like it will be typical of summer and pretty boring weather-wise through the weekend. We have sunny skies and high temperatures in the low 80s at lake level and upper 70s out over the colder lake water. High pressure builds over the West through the weekend keeping the region dry and with warming high temperatures. Afternoon highs into the mid-upper 80s at lake level. Overnight lows in the 50s.
Early next week we will cool back down slightly. An area of low pressure off of the southern CA coast may help in drawing monsoonal moisture northward. But just like last weekend most of the moisture is expected to stay to our south in the southern and central Sierra, with the heaviest precip over AZ & NM. There is a low chance we could see a few pop-up showers & thunderstorms by Tuesday afternoon.
– BA