National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

• Home
• Site Map
• News
• Organization
• Search for: NWS All NOAA 

000
FXUS65 KLKN 161025
AFDLKN

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Elko NV
325 AM PDT Tue Apr 16 2024

.SYNOPSIS...Dry today with temperatures trending warmer. A brief
pause in the warming across northern NV on Wednesday, otherwise
the warming trend will continue through the rest of the week with
most valley locations in the 70s this weekend.

&&

.SHORT TERM...Today through Wednesday night. As the recent upper
level low continues to exit off to the east early this morning,
skies across northern and central will be mostly clear. Dry with
warmer temperatures across the CWA today with the region under a
westerly flow aloft. Highs this afternoon will be be in the 60s,
which will be 5-10 degrees warmer than highs on Monday. Broad
trough energy approaching NV from the north will bring some mid
and high clouds to most of northern and portions of central NV
today. Wednesday afternoon the base of the approaching trough will
clip northern NV, which will produce breezy NW winds of 10-15mph
gusting 20-30mph across much of the region. Afternoon highs on
Wednesday will cool by a few degrees across northern NV with the
approaching trough, however central NV locations will trend a
couple degrees warmer.

.LONG TERM...Thursday through Tuesday

Transitory upper level short wave ridges continue be the main
story for first part of the long term forecast period. As each
ridge moves through the upper level flow, it will keep the flow
orientation mainly out of the NW. This will keep conditions dry
and allow for a slow warm-up for temperatures. By Friday evening a
large northern stream upper level low will be located over
northern plains just across the Canadian border, as a weak
southern stream upper trough moves on shore over southern
California, the inter play between these features may allow a weak
deformation zone to drift into Nevada for the weekend. Models
still show that this zone could serve as a focus for a few
isolated showers before this zone completely dissipates over
central Nevada. Model precipitation probabilities have been
trending lower with most recent runs with shower chances dropping
to 10% to 20%. The main impact of this front will be to flatten
the upper flow to more of a zonal pattern, an ending the slow
warming temperature trend. After Sunday model agreement is still
poor, with the GFS and ECMWF showing polar opposite solutions to
the upper pattern. with the ECMWF favoring a northern stream
trough across the NW US, while the GFS favors upper ridging
rebuilding across the west coast. Ironically these models suites
show the opposite solutions this time yesterday. Temperatures and
Winds: No changes here as a slow warming of temperatures will be
under way, as high pressure builds across the Silver State. Highs
will warm into the upper 60s to low 80s by Saturday afternoon
plateauing through Tuesday as model solutions diverge. Overnight
lows will follow a similar trend with lows warming slowly into the
lower 40s to low 50s by Saturday morning and remaining in this
range through the start of the work week. Winds relax as pressure
gradient eases under the influence of upper level ridging, winds
will be generally out of the W to NW but speeds will be 5 to 15
MPH with gusts up to 25 MPH.

&&

.AVIATION...VFR conditions are expected at all sites through
Tuesday. High level clouds will be most prevalent across northern
Nevada through Tuesday with diminishing mid-level cloud cover
overall through tonight. Winds will be light tonight, less than 10
knots, except at KTPH where northwest winds will take a bit longer
to subside overnight.

&&

.HYDROLOGY...Many streams, creeks and rivers across northern and
central Nevada have elevated flows. Dry conditions are expected
the remainder of the week, however temperatures will be trending
warmer which will again help to accelerate the melting of the
remaining mid and high elevation snowpack.

The Bruneau River is expected to remain around 7.0 feet (the low
end of minor flood stage) today.

The Owyhee River near Mountain City is expected to remain around
8.0 feet (the low end of minor flood stage) over the next several
days.

Wildhorse Dam is currently at action stage and is expected to
gradually rise, but remain below minor flood stage over the coming
days.

The Owyhee River near Wildhorse is now in action stage and
expected to gradually rise today, but remain below minor flood
stage.

The Humboldt River at Battle Mountain expected to remain in
action stage, but below minor flood stage for the remainder of
the week.

&&

.LKN Watches/Warnings/Advisories...None.

&&

$$

96/98/93