Winter may finally deign to make a 2013 appearance in Northern California this week. On the heels of revealing the driest start to a calendar year in nearly a century, weather officials are predicting a winter storm will trundle through western Nevada County Tuesday through Thursday. The storm, which is expected to drop a foot of snow in the high elevations, will likely bring a mix of rain and snow to the Sierra foothills, with minor accumulation possible overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning, said National Weather Service forecaster Karl Swanberg. The storm, which is approaching slowly from the Gulf of …