![]() The decade then concluded with a banner winter in 2019. An average year followed in 2016, but the next winter, 2017, was a wet and wooly whopper, and 2018 was mediocre until a quintessential Miracle March. So how did this decade shake out? The pow rolled in well enough for the 2010 winter, ramped up wildly in 2011, then entered a historic four years of drought. “Over the last 140 years the average snowfall has gone down 34 inches, but in the last 30 years it has leveled off,” he says.Ī street sign along Squaw Valley Road illustrates the snow depth in January 2017, photo courtesy Squaw Alpine Of interest, however, Allegretto points out that the snowfall at the Snow Lab has stayed similar, averaged out over the last 30 years, but has decreased in the longer term. “In these last seven years, we are seeing more precipitation running at a higher average, compared to snowfall at the elevation of the ,” says Allegretto. The theory is that the years where this happened had more rain than snow, compared to the average.Įach of the last seven years in Tahoe was in the negative category (although several, including 2019, were close to zero), indicating more wet winters. Years when the total precipitation (as a percentage of average) was higher than the total snow (as a percentage of average) fall into the negative category. To look at this, he took total precipitation (rain combined with the water equivalent of melted snow) and total snowfall for each year from 1970 through 2019 from the Snow Lab, and compared them against their respective average. ![]() Meaning that, on average, every other year was a top-10 year for snow, or top-10 for lack thereof.Ĭonnected with any discussion of snow is the reality of climate change, and the future of snowpack has everyone-whether business owner, avid skier or average citizen-justifiably concerned.īryan Allegretto, the Tahoe forecaster for Open Snow, says he’s constantly asked if snow levels are rising. ![]() “We are seeing extremes, and we have had very dry years,” Osterhuber adds.ĭemonstrating this, out of seven complete decades on record from the Snow Lab, the 2010s had the most winters (five) that broke the top 10 for either the most or least accumulated snowfall. At 6,950 feet in elevation, the Snow Lab holds Tahoe’s most complete localized source of snow data, monitoring everything snow-related since 1946 and with records dating back to 1879, taken by the Southern Pacific Railroad company. “Over the last decade the variability is increasing,” says Randall Osterhuber, station manager at the Central Sierra Snow Lab on Donner Pass. We see agonizing dry spells and atmospheric freak shows, with every upcoming winter an unknown (long-range forecasts have repeatedly been flat-out wrong).Īnd now, as we find ourselves at the end of the decade, we reflect on the last 10 years that many times saw meteorological limits stretched to the edge and, by several metrics, hit unseen levels in our recorded history. What these ritualistic chats unearth is an inarguable, aisle-bridging truth: Tahoe is a roller coaster. Squaw Valley Ski Patrol on KT-22 in the snowy winter of 2017, photo courtesy Squaw Alpine ![]()
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