Atmospheric Rivers Can Dump 10 Feet Of Snow During One Storm

As I write this, the National Weather Service has issued stern warnings for Tahoe and the surrounding area. They say an atmospheric river is going to take aim directly at Tahoe beginning early Sunday morning. If the weather people are correct, come Sunday we will be struggling with massive rainfall, 6 - 12 inches over the next 24 hours.

The snow levels are expected to be high, 8000 - 9000 feet, which, considering the amount of moisture involved, is good for those of us who live here. Why? Because if an inch of rain falls instead as snow, you can get up to a foot of snow. If all this moisture fell as snow, we'd get 6 - 12 FEET. Ask a Tahoe local, and you'll hear that we can handle 4 feet of snow at once. However, 12 feet would be a bit much.

But imagine all that snow up at 8000 or 9000 feet. Those higher elevations could be hit with a major dump of fresh pow. So, skiers and boarders, consider what it will be like at the top of Heavenly, Tahoe's highest area (Remember that both Kirkwood and Mt. Rose are almost as high). On both the California and Nevada sides of Heavenly, the highest chairlift bases are around 8500 feet. The Sky Chair on the California chair goes up to 10,000 feet. The Dipper and Comet chairs on the Nevada side go up almost as high. Mt. Rose rises to 9700 feet and Kirkwood tops out at 9800 feet.

While Tahoe's lower elevations are flooding with rain, our upper elevations will likely have epic snow.

P.S. Over the last week, most of the ski areas got 6 feet or more of snow. They're about to get a substantial addition in a short period of time. Stay tuned...