Today's Lake Tahoe weather: Significant warming trend through the weekend

A cool and dry air mass with a surface high pressure system has settled into the Great Basin in the wake of a dry cold front on Monday morning.

This Great Basin high will bring light east to northeast winds around 10 to 15 mph to the Tahoe area over the next few days with gusts over 40 mph along the Sierra crest. Highs today are expected to warm into the mid to upper 60s around the lake under mostly sunny skies. Lows tonight are forecast to drop into the mid to upper 30s with partly cloudy skies.

Sunny skies and warmer temperature will continue into Wednesday with highs reaching the lower to mid 70s along with northeast winds 10 to 15 mph.

A strong upper level high pressure ridge will shift slowly eastward from the eastern Pacific through the coming weekend.

This high pressure pattern is expected to bring a significant warming trend to the Tahoe area through the weekend with near record high temperatures in the lower 80s possible by Saturday.

Stay tuned to see if these warm summer like temperatures will result in any afternoon or evening Thunderstorms.

<i> — Meteorologist Tom Cylke can be reached at tcylke@charter.net. </i>