9 Incredible Sierra Nevada, California Snow Records: The Sierra Nevada is no stranger to big snowstorms. As far back as the November 1846, The Donner Party learned this the hard way with a 5-foot overnight snowstorm. Since snowfall record keeping began in 1879, there have been some incredible snowstorms in the Sierra Nevada of California. The Sierras still get huge amounts of snow with Sugar Bowl ski resort leading the charge with 500″ of snow per year. This isn’t surprising as Sugar Bowl is located on Donner Pass, where many of the records below took place. […] SnowBrains | December 28, 2021 3 Comments
Origins: Sierra Nevada Snow Surveying In this week’s edition of Origins, we take a look at the humble beginning of snow surveying within the Sierra Nevada Mountains. If you missed last week’s edition on how the New Deal helped promote the U.S. ski industry you can check it out here: Related: Origins: How The New Deal Helped Foster The U.S. Ski Industry California’s most precious […] Ryan Flynn | November 6, 2020 3 Comments
Could Tahoe Have 3 Bad Winters in a Row? | Interview with Sierra Snow Scientist After two dry winters in a row in Tahoe, I think we all have one question in the back of our minds: “Could Tahoe have 3 bad winters in a row?” The short answer is yes. Yes, because anything is possible, and yes because our historical snowfall graph from Donner Summit, CA shows us that the answer is yes. 7 times […] Miles Clark | May 10, 2013 12 Comments
Tahoe 2012/13 = 50% Average Snowfall, 22% Average Snowpack as of Today | Central Sierra Snow Lab Numbers I just got off the phone with the Randall Osterhuber at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. He gave me his impressions of the 2012/13 winter thus far and all the numbers on Cumulative Snowfall, Snow Depth, and Precipitation for the 2012/2013 season. We all know it wasn’t a great year, but it’s good to look at the […] Weather Miles Clark | April 4, 2013 3 Comments
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