Early spring storms bringing snow to California, drizzle to Los Angeles

The storm season isn’t over just yet, as an early spring system headed for California is expected to bring snow to the Sierra and light rain to Los Angeles next week.

Two waves of precipitation are headed to the Tahoe region, with the first wave beginning Monday into Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service. The Sierras could get up to two inches near Mammoth.

A second, stronger system is expected to drop from Alaska Wednesday into Thursday, with up to a foot of snow predicted for the highest peaks in the Tahoe basin and about 2 to 5 inches of snow outside of the highest peaks, according to the weather service. Lake Tahoe could receive up to 3 inches of snow.

“With active winters, we’ll have snow even in May,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Gigi Giralte in Reno. “It’s not necessarily out of the ordinary. It’s just out of ordinary for the winter that we’ve been in because it’s been very dry in the month of March for our area and it’s been warm as well.”

On Friday, temperatures are expected to warm up to the mid-60s to the lower 70s for the Sierra communities, with gusts up to 25 mph, according to the weather service. On Saturday, South Lake Tahoe could reach 66 degrees and is supposed to warm up even more by Sunday.

Temperatures are expected to drop during the snow to near-normal temperatures by the end of March, according to the weather service. The second storm could also bring some wind-related impacts. Snow levels could dip below 7,000 feet and as low as 5,000 feet by early Thursday.

In Los Angeles, there’s about a 20 to 40% chance there could be light rain on Tuesday into Wednesday.