We have one more round of some light scattered showers on Wednesday before we go into a prolonged dry period. A weak low pressure center will push a frontal band through the region Wednesday afternoon, giving us in the valley a slight chance of rain or snow showers in the afternoon. Temperatures will warm slightly into the low 40s. After the front passes through Thursday morning, a ridge of high pressure will build across the west coast, drying us out for the foreseeable future. Some residual cloudiness will stay through the work week, but should clear out by Sunday finishing the week on a sunny note. Look for high temperatures to climb into the low 50s by Saturday.

With the level of Lake Tahoe now less than a foot beneath its natural rim, it is still more than premature to say the drought is over. But with a healthier than average snowpack in the Tahoe basin (136% of average for this time of year at last check), there should be enough runoff in the spring to at least bring the lake back up above the rim. In an average year, the lake comes up 15 inches, and barring the taps turning off the rest of the winter, we should do even better than that this spring.