The storms keep on coming, and the snow keeps on piling up, covering the Sierra Nevada in a seamless blanket of fresh powder. Anyone who enjoys skiing or sipping cocoa by a fire amid a white landscape is anxious to set their boots down in the fresh Sierra snow.

But yet again, another storm is on the way, making travel to the mountains tricky.

"The storm system arrives Friday evening and continues through Sunday," says Evan Laguardia, a forecaster with the National Weather Service office in Reno. "So don’t travel over the weekend. Thursday drive up would be your best bet to drive up and if you can’t, it would be Friday morning. Monday is another day to drive."

Snow levels will be at higher elevations above 6,000 feet when the storm first arrives on Friday. Levels are likely to drop as low as 4,000 feet on Saturday night and into Sunday.

In the past week, two storms have pummeled the Sierra, and Tahoe Basin elevations 8,000 feet and above have reported more than seven feet of snow. "It’s been exactly one week since snow started falling here at Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows and we are now up to 80 inches, or nearly seven feet, of snow on the upper mountain at Squaw Valley," said Liesl Hepburn, a spokesperson for Squaw Alpine. "That’s an average foot of snowfall per day."

At higher elevations, Heavenly is reporting 86 inches, Northstar 81 inches and Kirkwood 92.

READ ALSO: 7 feet in 7 days — See the snow piled up in Tahoe

The first storm pushed into the Sierra just before Thanksgiving and was cold, with snow levels dropping to valley floors. The second storm was a warmer, moisture-rich atmospheric river originating near Hawaii. Rain fell at lower elevations, melting a lot of snow, but the snowfall was copious at elevations above 6,000 to 8,000 feet.

"We went from zero to hero over the Thanksgiving holidays," said Stuart Mass, a spokesperson for the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority. "Winter in Tahoe is now in full swing and ski season is shaping up very nicely with all major resorts open and snowpack at over 130 percent."

Thursday is expected to be mostly dry and cloudy. "On Thursday, we get a break from the precipitation, but with gloomy skies. It will be gloomy like a Seattle day," says Laguardia.

Amy Graff is a digital editor for SFGATE. Email her at agraff@sfgate.com.