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2025-03-31 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Late March Snowstorm in Sierras, multiple feet of snow

[WUNDERGROUND] By Monday 31 March snow may be coming down at 2"/hour about 6000' near all passes between Little Truckee Summit at SR 89 and Minaret Summit at SR 203.

Some passes will likely be closed for up to 12 hours. Other will require chains. Avalanches will be possible from mid Monday.

Greater Lake Tahoe area may get 1-2'; mountains will get more.

Posted by Lord Garth 2025-03-31 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11147 views ] Top

#1 Snowed for 3 days in March, the week I was due to leave the mountains west of Denver. Five feet of powder. The turbo RAM would power thru it but the doors wouldn't open. Had to climb in and out the windows.

Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-31 01:22|| 2025-03-31 01:22|| Front Page Top

#2 ^1
was that east of the crest of the Rockies?

Posted by Lord Garth 2025-03-31 09:45|| 2025-03-31 09:45|| Front Page Top

#3 Evergreen, CO.

Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-31 10:35|| 2025-03-31 10:35|| Front Page Top

^^You aren’t that miserable looking man sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, ice fishing in Evergreen Lake are you?

Posted by Beavis 2025-03-31 11:38|| 2025-03-31 11:38|| Front Page Top

#5 Only thing you find there are toilet fish.

Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-31 12:35|| 2025-03-31 12:35|| Front Page Top

#6 A buddy of mine moved from GA to Evergreen, I used to stay with him to go snowboarding.

Seeing those dudes sitting on that lake in Feb, all I could think was, “You gotta really dislike your wife to do that”

Posted by Beavis 2025-03-31 12:40|| 2025-03-31 12:40|| Front Page Top

Snowpack is at about 90% of normal right now, and the storm has produced about .5 inches of rain in the Carson Valley so far(Valley floor elevation is around 4,800 ft elevation, Norther Sierra's around Tahoe top at at around 11,000 ft). Water here is entirely dependent on the Snowpack to recharge the aquifer and sustain the Carson River into the late summer as the 9 inches of annual rainfall are almost entirely in the late fall winter months. Late spring rain is actually a concern, "

"Whether the forecast atmospheric river to arrive on the coast sometime in the next few days will boost the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada or wash it all into the Carson Valley will depend entirely on the temperature.

"National Weather Service Hydrologist Nathan Patrick of the River Forecast Center said this earlier this week that if a storm is too warm, it could increase the speed of the spring thaw.

“Somewhat counter-intuitively, springtime precipitation falling as rain can sometimes be a negative,” Patrick said during the California-Nevada Drought & Climate Outlook Webinar on March 24. “It can melt snowpack more quickly with warm storms in the mountains, which isn’t desirable from a water supply perspective.”

A colder storm would be far better to preserve the snowpack.

“The preference would be for the snowpack to act as a natural reservoir, melting slowly,” Patrick said. “Substantial springtime precipitation can encourage smaller vegetation growth which will later dry out and produce fuel for fires. It’s a balancing issue of not wanting too much or too little precipitation over this time period.”

Irrigation season officially starts on Tuesday, but many ditches across Carson Valley are already starting to convey water from the river toward the fields.

Water in the Carson River isn’t potable, but if there’s enough to irrigate crops, ranchers won’t need to resort to pumping from the aquifer.

The snowpack provides virtually the only upstream storage on the Carson River."

https://www.recordcourier.com/news/2025/mar/31/winter-storm-warning-issued-for-lake-tahoe/

Posted by NoMoreBS 2025-03-31 14:46|| 2025-03-31 14:46|| Front Page Top

02:05 Grom the Affective
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