The Sierra Nevada mountains were walloped this week by one of the biggest storms in decades, with some areas seeing more than 10 feet of new snow.
UC Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Laboratory tallied111 inches of snowfallover the past five days, making for the snowiest five-day stretch in over 40 years. The only snowier periods were in December 1970, with 113 inches, and April 1982, with 118.5 inches.
The recent snow has been unusually powdery: the 25.6 inches that the snow lab received on Wednesday had a snow-to-liquid ratio of 21:1. The Sierra typically sees ratios of8:1 to 10:1, which corresponds with heavy, wet snow - widely known asSierra cement.
This map shows estimated snowfall totals across California over the past five days, based on data published Friday morning from theNational Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center.
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Ski resorts also reported astonishing snow totals this week. On Friday morning,Sugar Bowl Ski Resortreported a weekly total of 111 inches, including 27 inches of snow over the most recent 24-hour stretch. The storm brought 124 inches of snow this week to the upper mountain atPalisades Tahoe, according to an update at 9 a.m. Friday.
The enormous dump came after a prolonged stretch of little to no new snow. While storms in December brought sizable totals, January and early February were mostly dry. The powdery new snow atop the old, melted and refrozen layer created conditions conducive to avalanches - a horror thatkilled a presumed nine backcountry skierson Tuesday.
Despite the major accumulation, California's snowpack continues to be well below normal: Statewide it's 75% of average for Friday's date, including 101% in southern Sierra, 76% in the central Sierra and 54% in the northern Sierra/Cascades. Those measurements are based on snow water equivalent, so the relatively modest numbers may reflect the powdery, low-water nature of this week's snow (in addition to the deep hole the state had to dig out of, so to speak, caused by the earlier dry spell).
Because the storms were also quite cold, they even brought snow atopBay Area peakslike Mount Tamalpais and Mount Diablo.
This article originally published atTahoe storm dumped staggering amounts of snow.
Source: Drudge Report
