LAKE TAHOE, Nevada — With four days remaining in the month, Lake Tahoe has already broken the December snowfall record set 50 years ago.
On Monday, December, snow totals at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab hit 193.7 inches, breaking a 1970 record of 179 inches above the water.
The lab, located at Donner Pass, received about 39 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and could surpass the 200-inch mark today.
The lab was built in 1946 by the US Weather Bureau and the Army Corps of Engineers and maintains one of the world’s oldest manual snow depth records, dating back to 1879.
“This has been a very beneficial storm for the Sierra region,” said Dan McEvoy, regional climatologist for the Western Regional Climate Center.
The Lake Tahoe Basin is about 200% of the average for snow water equivalent – the amount of water that will be released from the snowpack when it melts – for this time of year.
And the basin is at 60% of its peak average snowwater equivalent, which occurs around the end of March or early April, McEvoy said. The median maximum average is 27 inches, and today 16.1 inches of snow water equivalent was measured, he said.
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The December storms arrived “forming a blanket of snow in the area,” he said. Previous storms were wetter with snow at higher elevations, but temperatures and snow levels subsequently dropped.
“It’s good for water content and avalanche issues,” McEvoy said.
It will also help keep the snowpack at ski resorts in the region in good condition, even if the region experiences a period of drought.
“It has been a pretty impressive month of December,” said McEvoy.
But, he warned, it is possible that drought conditions will resume.
“If I had to insist on one point, it’s that the drought is not over. We need the storms to continue all winter.
Contact Amy Alonzo at [email protected]