A Winter Weather Advisory is posted for Friday in Reno starting in the late afternoon, and a Winter Storm Warning has been posted for the mountains starting early Friday through Saturday. High winds will make travel difficult, especially through the mountains starting Friday morning, and I would advise anybody who needs to travel over the mountains to wait until later in the day Saturday if you can’t make the trip Thursday night. It is quite likely there will be significant delays and pass closures Friday and Friday night. Snow decreases and temperatures drop from the upper 40s Friday to the mid-30s Saturday and Sunday.

For those of you keeping score at home, we rang in winter Wednesday morning at 2:44 am local time. That was the moment of the winter solstice…essentially the moment when the northern hemisphere is tilted the farthest away from the sun as it makes its yearly orbital trek. It also marks the shortest day of the year. One might think that would also mean that it is the day with the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset, but that is not the case. Our earliest sunset was back on December 6, and the latest sunrise won’t occur until January 4. Why is that? I’ll explain tomorrow.