Some 90 inches of snow fell in four days leading up to the disaster. The now-third-ranked 1982-83 winter came on the heels of the season when Tahoe’s deadliest avalanche struck at Alpine Valley south of Truckee. The monument at Donner Memorial State Park indicates the snow depth reached 22.5 feet before some of the stranded resorted to cannibalism. Ten major storms dumped rain and snow on the mountains the first two weeks of November 1846. Mark McLaughlin, a Tahoe-area author of several books on Sierra history and weather, accepts the railroad numbers and believes snow that fell on the Donner Party in 1846-47 is similar to what fell in 1951-52. The lab doesn’t formally recognize those numbers because they were from slightly different locations using a different methodology. Those unofficial measurements taken near where the train was stranded in 1952 suggest more snow could have fallen in 1938, and nearly that much in 18. The snow lab has records dating to 1880 based on measurements taken by the Southern Pacific Railroad. What’s now the fourth-snowiest winter in 2010-11 received 225 inches of its 643 total inches - or 35% - post-March 15. Several of the snowiest winters logged at least one-fourth of their season total after March 15. “I’d almost say the opposite is more likely to be true.” “There’s basically nothing that would indicate just because we’ve been this active, we would then transition the other direction,” Bardsley said. Sometimes snow continues falling in the Sierra well into June.įor this winter to overtake the record in 1951-52, another 145 inches would have to fall - unlikely, but not out of the question.
The official winter season coincides with the water year, beginning Oct. “Historically, some of our big seasons have continued to be active right on through the end of spring,” said Tim Bardsley, the senior hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Reno. More snow is forecast over the next 10 days, but nobody knows what the spring will bring.
“We’ve seen bigger storms in other years and years with higher snow water equivalent totals … but the relentlessness of this season is likely what makes it most unique,” said Andrew Schwartz, the lab’s manager and lead scientist.
The official record book keeper is UC-Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab, founded in 1946 in Soda Springs, California, northwest of Lake Tahoe. “Stacked up, big storm after big storm after big storm - wham, wham, wham.” “It started early and it seems to just keep going,” said Eric Sage, 45, of Sparks, who shoveled his way through many big winters growing up in Truckee but doesn’t remember one like this. Interstate 80 closed several times between Reno and Sacramento. Roofs collapsed under the weight of snow and schools shuttered for days. The final day of the Nevada high school state skiing championships was canceled. Since December, a parade of atmospheric storms have dumped so much snow on the Sierra that Tahoe ski resorts have been forced to shut down multiple times. That was the second of back-to-back blizzard buster seasons remembered most for an avalanche that killed seven at a Tahoe ski resort on March 31, 1982. Over the weekend, the “winter that just doesn’t want to end” as the National Weather Service in Reno put it, topped the previous No. RENO - No one really knows how much snow fell on the infamous Donner Party when the pioneers were trapped atop the Sierra Nevada for months and dozens died near Lake Tahoe in the winter of 1846-47.īut this season has now etched its way into the history books as the second snowiest in the 77 years of record-keeping at the Central Sierra Snow Lab - more than 56.4 feet with no end in sight.Īnd there’s still a chance it could surpass the record of 67.7 feet set in 1951-52 when more than 200 passengers on a San Francisco-bound luxury train from Chicago were stranded for three days near Donner Pass west of Truckee, California. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP) A snowblower removes snow in Tahoe City, Calif.
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