Well, it’s not much, but at least it’s something. A moderate low pressure center coming up from the southwest (not the best pattern for a winter storm) will bring occasional showers to the region through the middle of the weekend, with high snow levels (8,000’ Thursday, gradually lowering to about 6,500’ by Saturday). Valley amounts will be pretty scant to non-existent, while the mountains could see more measurable amounts of rain at the Lake, and the crests could see several inches above 8,000’ by Sunday.

Yesterday I mentioned that no, it can’t get too cold to snow, although a lot of people think it can. That feeling comes from an observation that it never seems to snow as much when it is bitterly cold as it does when it is a bit “warmer”. There’s a good reason for this.

Cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air can, so it stands to reason that you won’t get as much precipitation out of cold air as warm, and for the most part, this is correct. But even extremely cold air can hold some water, and a little moisture will saturate the air, and thus you can get precipitation. If you cool the air some more, you will condense some more moisture out of it, but there will always be some left (expressed as the vapor pressure of water at a given temperature) to be available to condense out in the form of snow.