We'll be dealing with two systems this week, the first of which will get underway Monday night (tonight). Rain will fill in from south to north with high snow levels (1800 - 2100 m) and continue through midday Tuesday. Rain totals look a bit lower than the models were showing last week, as you can see below.

The heaviest rain will fall in the southern section of the central zone, with Antillanca and Volcan Osorno expected to see the most ( > 1 cm). Elsewhere < .5 cm is expected. The northern zone will be spared any rain with this system with the southerly track. We could see some minor snow accumulations at upper elevations, but it won't be much.

A break in the action is expected Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning before the next system rolls in. This one will also start out warm, but a cold front will start to cool things off on Wednesday night. The storm will move in from the south but soon track to the north, and then linger in the north through early next week.

This will keep the snow going in the northern zone during this time. Overall I expect 10 - 25 cm in both the central and northern zones, with the highest amounts likely in the north as the storm lingers. By Thursday it should be snowing down to the bases. The central zone will see most of its snow from Wednesday night to Thursday, while it will be snowing on and off in the north through Saturday. The latest snow forecast from the European model is shown below. I don't think the American model is handling this system very well so I am putting more weight on the European and Canadian models.

The track of the storm will bring a period of north and northeast winds to the northern zone, which will provide better orographics on the eastern (Argentinian) side of the Andes.

We don't see this happen too often but Las Lenas could do well with this setup. You can see the models picking up on this feature with the deepest snow forecast on the Argentinian side of the range. 

Another ridge is expected to move into the southern part of the continent this weekend, keeping the storm track to the south. The ridge should stick around through the middle of the following week before moving out and opening the door back up for more storms. There's a small chance the ridge sets up a little bit farther north allowing some of the storms to impact the central and southern zones, but that scenario is not favored at this time. Next update on Wednesday.

Thanks for reading the South America Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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