Yesterday, when researchers sought to measure snow depth on Slide Mountain at Mount Rose Ski Tahoe near Reno, their tools couldn’t reach bottom.
“We’re not even close,” hydrologist Jeff Anderson said after jamming an aluminum tube more than 16 feet into the snowpack hoping to reach the ground below.
An historic winter for the Sierra Nevada
The snowpack is 212 inches (538 cm) deep at the Slide Mountain SNOTEL site. It’s a record for March 1 at the site, beating the previous record set in 1997 by about 20 percent.
Mount Rose Ski Tahoe has measured a total of about 54 feet of snow since the beginning of ski season. That’s about the height of a 5-story building.
The overall snowpack in the Truckee River Basin, the Lake Tahoe Basin and the Carson River Basin are all running more than 207 percent of normal.
Statewide, the California snowpack is at an estimated 185 percent of normal for the date.
Source: Reno-Gazette Journal