NWS Reno: Forecasting for the Sierra and Western Nevada Since 1905

Let's take a quick look back at the storm that unfolded across the Sierra and western Nevada on Friday night into early Saturday morning. We were discussing this storm on the midnight shift, and we would rank it as one of the top 5 "winter" storms this season. Too bad it is a few months too late to really assist with the snow pack, which is what we desperately need to help alleviate the drought pains. I guess we should just be appreciative of what rain and snow that we got. Snow totals were pretty decent for this time of year. We actually had multiple reports of around 10 inches in the Tahoe basin and a few back country snow sensors reported around 12 inches! Chain controls were across most of the Sierra passes from early Saturday morning until the showers lessened and the sun allowed the roads to begin warming up. We were a bit surprised to hear the road to Bodie National Park and Monitor Pass (Highway 89) actually remained open during the event! The high sun angl...

The Drought, Year 4 - A Sierra Perspective Wow, I would never have expected the snowpack in 2014/15 to be a fraction of what we saw during the winter of 2013/14. As a Meteorologist it is interesting to see the full range of winters the Sierra Nevada has to offer, with memories not so distant of the record setting deep snowpack of 2010/11 that immediately preceded the current drought. However, as a human, who lives in the Sierra and moved here to ski its deep snowpack, it’s downright depressing. Left image is the Sierra snowpack on March 27th 2010. Right image is the Sierra snowpack on March 29th 2015 Where do we stand now.... As of the beginning of April, this has been the least snowy year on record at Donner Summit since the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory was established in 1946. For the first time on record the snowpack melted down to  zero  in March! The previous lowest snowpack measurement in March was  14 inches , and that was last year. Mar...