Winter Storms Begin for 2009-10
dan Monday, December 07 2009 @ 07:12 AM PST
With the harbinger storm that arrived in mid-October, the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada have had several inches of early snowpack throughout the fall., although temperatures remained above normal, melting away the early snows at inhabited levels. The Thanksgiving weekend storm was kind to the June Lake/Lee Vining areas, favoring us with a lake effect from the Mono Basin and dropping a welcome white blanket (about eight inches in town at June Lake). As of this Monday morning in early December we are again receiving more snow, and the NWS forecasters expect storms to continue arriving throughout the week. It's looking good for the opening of June Mountain on Saturday December 19!
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comments (3)
that storm looks awesome from here in chino!id love to hunker down with wife and enjoy it oh so.cal. mtns. getting hammered also maybe ill chain up and go there!
Well, maybe... the fact is that despite the much publicized climate change, we have had many storms over the last fifty years during which rain occurred at high elevations. In 1968 a great deal of rain fell all the way up to the 9000 foot level, and the resulting high moisture content caused flooding when the runoff occurred in the spring. A President's Weekend storm in the 1980's was very warm and wet, causing the existing snowpack to acquire the consistency of wet concrete and resulted in a myriad of avalanches. And don't forget the New Year's Eve rainstorm of 1999 that washed away several feet of snow all the way to the 10,000 foot summits: the resulting torrents washed out Highway 395 in the canyon of the West Walker river, demolishing homes and businesses in the Walker/Coleville area. Warm and wet storms involving a tropical moisture flow are not historically unusual in the sierra: they are legendarily known as "pineapple express" storms and result in the type of snow known as "sierra cement."
Very soon your webcamera going to be all icy!