One of the greatest prizes, and challenges, of living in Lake Tahoe and Truckee is the weather.  Lake Tahoe weather is extreme, especially in the winter.  Our ski areas, particularly Sugar Bowl, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, and Kirkwood, are blanketed with some of the deepest snow in the country.  For avid skiers like myself, there is an unparalleled excitement when I start hearing rumors of the first storm of the year, and the BIG storms which come in throughout the winter. 

Weather forecasting is far from precise, but there are an assortment of tools that help me stoke my fantasies and keep from missing any powder days.

My favorite tool is the weather blog at tahoeweatherdiscussion.com.  This is a great blog because it is written by a gentleman who is a snowboarder whose main focus is on predicting the powder days!  Though he claims forecasting is just a "hobby", he actually studied meteorology for a couple of years and his knowledge is quite extraordinary.  My favorite part about the blog is he shares a lot of information about long term forecasts and trends.  If there's a weather system with even a chance of impacting tahoe, he'll tell you about it.

Another great tool I monitor regularly is the "Weather Geek" blog at Tahoeloco.com.  This blog is a good resource for daily weather details and short term forecasts.

Accuweather.com is a great resource for radar and satellite pictures on storm days.

The NWS/NOAA forecasts are good tools for 7 day temperature forecasts, winds, and forecasted snow fall amounts.

I hope this helps all you ski bums out there, and I'd love to hear if there are other resources which you like.  Pray for snow and don't miss any powder days!!!