A powerful and unrelenting winter blast coated the Northern Sierra Nevada this winter. Back-to-back storms buried the Lake Tahoe area in snow, crippling transportation, shuttering ski resorts, knocking out power and disrupting the daily lives of thousands. In the first three weeks of January alone, the region received nearly a full winter’s worth of snow, and then came February, and the Sierra Nevada was slammed yet again with moisture-packed storms fueled by weather systems known as atmospheric rivers.