Lake Tahoe sees 300 sunny days a year, or that's the number people often toss around, and lately, it rings true. Maybe a little too much.

With a holiday weekend approaching, the forecast for Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada really hasn't changed all that much since New Year's Day. High pressure is giving Tahoe more of the same: sun, sun and sun, with temperatures forecast to be in the 40s through Sunday in the greater Lake Tahoe area, dipping into the 30s on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, according to the National Weather Service in Reno.

When daytime temperatures warm up in the winter, one of the bigger factors that influence ski and snowboarding conditions is nighttime temperatures. If nights cool down below freezing, the snowpack enters a melt-freeze cycle, which creates conditions often seen in the springtime. But here we are in January, experiencing an early dose of spring.

There is a glimmer of hope for a storm on the horizon, however. On Thursday, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center's outlook for eight to 14 days in the future shows a slight nudge for above-average chances of precipitation.

Earlier this month, the Climate Prediction Center announced that we are officially in a La Niña winter. A typical La Niña delivers above-average precipitation to the Pacific Northwest and parts of Northern California, while Southern California experiences below-average precipitation. In an updated discussion about the seasonal outlook, published Thursday, forecasters say this winter looks like it will follow that typical La Niña pattern.

But in between the far northern and southern parts of California is a huge swath of uncertainty, labeled "equal chances" on the forecast map.

"What that means is that there was a decent amount of uncertainty in the forecast for that area of California," said Johnna Infanti, a meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center.

"Equal chances" means the weather can go either way for most of California. That could mean an early spring for the Bay Area, Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada. Or it could keep the possibility open for storms to swing through, coming down from the north.

"You can still have periods of really intense rainfall over California that happen into February March from atmospheric river events," Infanti said.