Tag Archive for: Sierra Mountains

Season Snowfall Totals Have Dropped Since 1970 in the Sierra, But Average Precipitation Has Gone Up

Snow season in Northern California has always been characterized by starts and stops, but this season may have brought a little extra whiplash with a big storm in October, a dry November, record snowfall in December to end 2021 only to be followed by a near-record dry January.

This region has seen similar extremes before, but because of climate change and resulting rising global temperatures, weather patterns are shifting to make these dramatic “dry to wet back to dry” periods more common. Tracers of this trend are showing up in climate data for the Sierra and the Western U.S. as a whole.

Could the Sierra Get 100 Inches of Snow by Christmas? Here’s the Mountain Forecast

If You’re Headed Up to Tahoe This Week and Dreaming of a White Christmas, Meteorologists Say You’ll Get Your Wish. But It Might Not Be the Smoothest Trip Through the Sierra Nevada.

The Mountains Are Expected to Get Blanketed With Snow From a Series of Storms That Will Bring Rain to the Bay Area, With Donner Pass Seeing Possibly a Total of 80 to 100 Inches of Snow Tuesday Through Saturday, According to the National Weather Service Office in Sacramento.

Much-needed Rain Finally Falling in the Bay Area; Snow in the Sierra

Light rain started falling Sunday evening in the Bay Area, as a week of much-needed precipitation was forecast for the parched Northern California landscape.

One to 2 inches of rain is expected to fall across the Bay Area over the next week, and even more could fall across the North Bay as a series of storms dives in from the northwest, said Rick Canepa, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. To the east, parts of the Sierra Nevada could see more than a half-foot of snow by Monday morning.

From Snow Pack to Faucet: Tracing the Source of Our Water

Los Angeles’s water sources run as far as hundreds of miles away. In some cases, water drips from the snowmelt of the Sierra Mountains, trickles down to the Owens Valley, and is collected in a system of canals and aqueducts that pump water away from its natural avenues to deliver them to faucets throughout the greater Los Angeles region.