More snowfall ahead later this week, weather service says

ELKO — The year's first snowfall on Monday was in line with historical measurements, according to Craig Oswald, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Elko. And, he said, there's more to come this week.

For Elko proper, "The first measurable snowfall usually occurs on Nov. 8," Oswald said on Tuesday. "Measurable is 0.1 inches or greater. So from a climatology standpoint, we're pretty much right on the money this year, because we got snow last night. So for Nov. 8 versus Nov. 11, we're pretty much spot-on, actually pretty close, snow totals-wise."

He said 0.3 inch of snow fell on Monday night at the Elko weather service office off Interstate 80. But reports from the public via a website, and employees living in Spring Creek, show "we had totals that were between 1.2 and 2.5 inches, depending exactly where you are in Spring Creek."

"I think the totals were a little bit higher in the Horse Palace area, a little bit closer to the mountains there, over toward Lamoille and stuff," he explained.

"This week, through the end of the week and early next week, is looking pretty busy weather-wise for the area. We have another cold front coming in. It's going to start moving into Humboldt County on Thursday night, reaching the Elko area early Friday morning. So we're looking at additional accumulating snow across the area with that system," Oswald said.

"Beyond that, we have a brief break on Saturday afternoon into Sunday. But by Sunday night, early Monday morning, we're going to have another cold front coming in. There's a little bit more uncertainty with this one, just some discrepancies in the model guidance — but it looks like we're going to have a cold front coming in from the northwest or maybe a little bit more from the north," he said.

"That's looking like it's going to bring some more accumulating snow to the area. It's going to definitely be a busy week coming up here," he said. He encourage people to keep an eye on the service's Facebook page, National Weather Service Elko, and the local office's website, www.weather.gov/lkn/ .

Oswald said some of the weather service's findings are sourced from volunteer participation on a website called Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network or CoCoRaHS. The website allows for free citizen science participation to report weather events.

"We have two folks up in Spring Creek who report pretty regularly. It looks like we had a report from out by Winnemucca on this last storm. And then there are maybe two or three down in central Nevada who also report," Oswald said.

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