“Some people are weatherwise, but most are otherwise.”

         Benjamin Franklin

Sierra Nevada Snowfall Records as of June 2004

*Data compiled and weather descriptions written by Mark McLaughlin, Weather Historian —www.TheStormKing.com    © 2004

Echo Summit, California

Second greatest United States 24-hour snowfall record: 67 inches (5.6 ft.) January 4-5, 1982.  The old California record of 60 inches in 24 hours was recorded at Giant Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada in January 1933. 

The North American and world records are held by Silver Lake, Colorado, which received 76 inches (6.3 ft.) in 24 hours on April 14-15, 1921.

Montague, New York, located just east of Lake Ontario, reported 77 inches in 24 hours on January 11-12, 1997. The measurement was disallowed, however, after the National Climate Extremes Committee determined that the total of 77 inches was achieved by adding six measurements together, two more than the maximum allowed during any 24-hour period.

Jan. 4-5, 1982: From Jan. 3-5, torrential rains caused extensive damage and destruction in the lowlands of the central and northern parts of California and heavy snows fell in the highest mountains. The Santa Cruz Mountains were inundated with 10 to 20 inches of rain in 30 hours. The National Weather Service reported more than 8 inches of rain in one day, the greatest 24-hour rainfall since 1890 when record keeping began. Considered one of the worst storms of the century, several thousand people were flooded out of their homes, at least 18 people killed, trains derailed, and schools and highways closed. 

When the saturated air mass encountered the Sierra Nevada, precipitation intensified due to topography and orographic enhancement. The Echo Summit weather station at Sierra Ski Ranch, elevation 7,450 ft., is approximately ten air miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, on the upper western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The station is located near the Sierra Nevada crestline in an area where the well-defined ridge has a northwest-southeast orientation. Situated on a north-facing slope, the site is protected from the prevailing southerly and southwesterly storm wind flow.

Weather maps of this event indicate a strong zonal flow with very moist air flowing west to east across the Eastern Pacific. This juicy fetch of moisture from the southwest collided with colder air flowing down the eastern side of a high-pressure system centered over the Gulf of Alaska. The Jan. 4-5 storm that dumped between three to five feet of snow in the mountains was only one in a series of powerful snowstorms that had been hammering the Sierra Nevada over the New Year’s Holidays. The Central Sierra snowpack exceeded 11 feet in depth, and nearly a dozen avalanches had roared through the Donner Summit. Hundreds of motorists were stranded when CalTrans crews shut down Interstate 80. The two-day total of 80 inches (Jan. 3-5) recorded at Echo Summit during this 1982 event ranks third in California.

Note: Just three months after the Jan. 4-5 event, on March 30-31, a 65-inch snowfall was recorded in 24 hours at Twin Lakes, California, only eight miles south of Echo Summit. The two-day total from March 30 to April 1, 1982, at Twin Lakes was 90 inches, the second greatest 48-hour snowfall total in U.S. history. 

*Special thanks to John James, Nevada State Climatologist, Emeritus, for his assistance in this Echo Summit report.

Mount Shasta Ski Bowl, California

Single storm snowfall record: 189 inches (15.75 ft.) February 13 – 19, 1959.

Note: There were 103 inches of snowfall measured from Feb. 15–17 during this event, which holds both the United States and the world’s greatest two-day snowfall on record.

A comparable snow event occurred near Donner Pass in mid-February 1999, when a powerful winter storm dumped 168 inches (14 ft.) at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort from Feb. 6 to 9. 

Feb. 1959: The Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl snow-reporting station, located at elevation 7,841 ft., was a brand new facility during the 1958-59 winter season. The ski resort is situated above the tree line near an area that is routinely plagued by whiteouts, avalanches and road closures.

Despite the record amount of snow falling at the Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl in Feb. 1959, the national media was focused on the North American Championships being held at Squaw Valley, California. American and international winter sports athletes were invading the little known ski area and future site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.

At first there were serious concerns about adequate snow depth on the ski runs. The season had been so dry that the ground was bare at Squaw Valley Lodge (elev. 6,226 ft.) on Jan. 25, 1959.

Fortunately, the atmospheric circulation underwent a dramatic reversal from the persistent pattern of the previous two months. A low pressure trough replaced the strong ridge of high pressure in the western United States, which had been blocking storms from reaching the West Coast. 

A fierce storm on Feb. 10-12 dumped plenty of the white stuff on the mountains. Blue Canyon on the Sierra west slope set a new 24-hour February record of 33 inches, and even Reno, Nevada, picked up 22 inches. At Squaw Valley, 65 inches smothered the base lodge, with much more piling up in the higher elevations.

Late on Feb. 13, a shifting mid-latitude flow raised snow levels above 7,000 feet and soaked the lower elevation snowpack with more than two inches of rain. W.J. Denney, forecaster for the National Weather Service warned of “a giant storm that covers the ocean from the Gulf of Alaska to the subtropics of northern Mexico, and extends about 1,200 miles off California to Nevada and Idaho.” On Valentine’s Day, this seething, subtropical storm system blew in with hurricane force winds. Torrents of rain flooded the lowlands while blizzard conditions prevailed in the Sierra’s upper elevations.

Twelve inches of rain fell in 11 hours on California’s northwest coast. In Sacramento, National Weather Service warnings of potentially violent weather prompted city officials to close down the school system. The slow movement of the storm guaranteed that bands of heavy precipitation would continue to surge into the Sierra. Olympic officials could only hope for the best. Taking no chances, Nevada’s governor, Grant Sawyer, officially offered Reno the assistance of the Nevada National Guard if the ongoing rain posed a flood threat on the Truckee River.

On Feb. 17, freezing levels dropped and the snow really began piling up on KT22, site of the popular men’s and women’s downhill ski events. Extreme avalanche danger canceled all practice runs on KT22’s upper slopes and forced all competitors back into the lodge.

That very day, the U.S. Navy launched a sleek Vanguard II rocket into orbit from sunny Cape Canaveral, Fla. The 21-pound payload was the first U.S. weather satellite designed to photograph storm cloud formations from space. That successful launch into orbit 45 years ago initiated the era of the 3 to 5 day forecast. The clarity of the global weather picture increased dramatically with the new technology, but it was too late to help anyone at Squaw Valley.

Farther to the north, at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl, 178 inches fell in just six days, setting the Sierra’s record single storm total of nearly 15 feet. A total of 236 inches (19.7 ft.) of snow fell at Mt. Shasta that February, a record for the month.

February’s stormy pattern broke just one day before the North American Championship’s opening festivities. Squaw Valley had picked up 104 inches of snow in 10 days, but that didn’t stop thousands of spectators from swarming into the former cow pasture.

Tamarack, California

U.S. snowfall record for one month: 390 inches (32.5 ft.) January 1911

Jan. 1911: On New Year’s Day, 1911, no measurable snow could be found on Donner Summit, a rare event indeed. However, in early January, a dramatic regime change in the atmosphere dug a deep trough of low pressure over the eastern Pacific Ocean. On Jan. 10, the most intense winter storm in 21 years roared out of the Gulf of Alaska and charged into the central Sierra. The storm lashed the lowlands with wind and rain, causing flooding and widespread damage. Over the next five days, nearly 20 inches of rain soaked Camptonville, elev. 2,755 ft. 

At elevations above 5,000 feet, downbursts of snow were estimated at up to 12 inches an hour. Avalanches crushed long sections of the wooden snowsheds and shut down Southern Pacific train traffic throughout the Sierra snowbelt. Several trains packed with terrified travelers were snowbound between Reno, Nevada, and Emigrant Gap, California.

Another cold storm barreled into the northern Sierra on Jan. 27; more than eight feet of snow buried the towns of Portola and Quincy, north of Truckee. Avalanches blockaded Western Pacific’s train route through the Feather River Canyon.

January snowfall in the central and northern Sierra was the heaviest since the notorious winter of 1890. The snowpack at Donner Summit on Feb. 1 stood at 220 inches (18.3 ft). The observer at the Tamarack weather station, elev. 8,000 ft., tallied 390 inches (32.5 ft.) during January 1911, the U.S. record for one month.

Tamarack, California

U.S. seasonal snow depth record: 454 inches (37.8 ft.) March 10,1911

March 1911: Snow depth record measured at Tamarack, California, elev. 8,000 ft., on the upper west slope of the Sierra Nevada. On March 10, Southern Pacific Railroad employees reported 307 inches (25.6 ft.) of snowpack at Norden, California, near Donner Summit. 

The Tamarack station recorded 767 inches (63.9 ft.) during the winter of 1911, of which 390 inches or 51 percent fell in the month of January.

Donner Summit, California

U.S. snowiest April: 298 inches (24.8 ft.) April 1880  (Measured by Southern Pacific Railroad at Summit Station elevation 7,017 ft.)

April 1880: On April 1, a vigorous storm slammed into the region which smothered the Sierra Nevada west slope at Cisco Grove under four feet of snow within 24 hours. A massive snowslide near Emigrant Gap, buried Central Pacific Railroad’s tracks under 75 feet of snow, ice and rock.

The powerful storm was only the first of several major low-pressure systems barreling in from the Pacific Ocean. For three weeks blizzard conditions raged in the Sierra where the storms dumped a record 298 inches of snow on Donner Summit. Deadly avalanches caused by the continuous heavy snowfall destroyed miles of snowshed and blockaded the vital trans-Sierra train route for days. Shattered timbers and large boulders incapacitated train plows and created the need for hundreds of hired laborers to shovel the tracks by hand.

A particularly intense storm blasted the Summit region on April 20 and 21. It was described as “the heaviest and most protracted one ever encountered on the line of the Central Pacific.”

For three days during the middle of the month, two feet of snow fell every 24 hours, completely inundating Truckee, California. By the third week of April, with the town buried under 16 feet of snow and the ice measuring 10 feet thick on Donner Lake, the TruckeeRepublican newspaper proclaimed the storm to be unequaled in living memory.

As the storms churned on without a break, the snow reached incredible depths. More than 20 feet of it covered the ground at the McKinney estate on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe.

As May approached, the weather finally cleared, leaving a snowpack nearly 31 feet deep. Donner Summit received almost 67 feet of snow that winter, and more than one-third of it fell in April.

Tamarack, California

Sierra Nevada record snowfall during one season:

884 inches (73.7 ft.) 1906-07

This station [Tamarack] had just been established at 8,000 feet on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in Alpine County. The United States’ seasonal snowfall record is currently held by the Mount Baker ski area where 1,140 inches (95 ft.) were measured during the 1998-99 winter season. Measurement location was the Heather Meadows day lodge at 4,300 feet in elevation.

Winter 1906-07: Cold temperatures and heavy snow invaded the Sierra Nevada on November 21, 1906, the day before Thanksgiving. The wintry storm stalled in the Great Basin and strong northerly winds over Nevada and California drove temperatures down to freezing in Los Angeles and San Diego. Snow fell near San Francisco and ice formed in Golden Gate Park.

December was unusually wet and in some northern counties rain fell on twenty days or more. Slow moving storm systems were blocked in their eastward progression by high pressure over the Rocky Mountains. On December 11 and 12, a tremendous blizzard dumped three to four feet of snow in the Sierra. In February temperatures moderated as the jet stream shifted north taking the vigorous storm track with it.

The respite didn’t last long, however, and March came roaring in like a lion. Rain and snow fell everyday that month except on the 14th and 15th and from the 28th to 31st.  Records for both intensity and frequency of rainfall were broken throughout Northern California. Sacramento reported 7.28 inches or 353 percent of normal that month. Sierra locations got pounded with another 13 inches of precipitation, mostly in the form of high elevation rain. Inskip in Butte County led all stations with a whopping 45.00 inches of rain in 31 days.

All-ready swollen streams and rivers on both sides of the Sierra range exploded into raging, uncontrollable torrents of muddy destruction. The catastrophic floods broke levees in California and inundated thousands of prime Nevada ranchland under six feet of water.

Top Three Snowstorms USFS Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL)

March 27 to April 8, 1982 — 15.5 ft.

January 20 to 31, 1969 — 13.7 ft.

January 10 to 17, 1952 — 12.8 ft.

Twelve other snowfall events at the CSSL have each dumped nearly ten feet, with a mean storm-duration of 11.4 days. Snowstorm totals greater than six feet are not uncommon.

The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory is situated at 6,950 feet in elevation and located just west of the Sierra Crest near Donner Summit in the Yuba River basin. Much of California receives less than 24 inches of precipitation annually, in fact, one third of the state averages less than 6 inches of rain a year. In contrast, Donner Summit’s annual average precipitation is nearly 54 inches with most of the precipitation falling as snow. (Precipitation is rain and snowmelt combined.) The snowfall season generally begins in early November and usually lasts through May. Historically, November through March comprise 76% of the annual precipitation, with January and February the two wettest months, comprising 34% of the total. Donner Pass is typically quite dry from June through September with only 5% of the annual precipitation falling in this four-month period. October 1 is historically the date of minimum runoff and reservoir levels in California and also the beginning of the rainy season. The Sierra Nevada water year runs from October 1 to September 30.

Top Three 24-hour Snowstorms at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory

February 3, 1989 — 52 inches

October 21, 1967 — 46.5 inches

February 19, 1980 — 46.1 inches

Top Three Maximum Snowdepths at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory

March 19, 1952 — 20.57 ft.

March 25, 1983 — 15.71 ft.

February 24, 1993 — 14.17 ft.

Snowfall and snowpack data from the CSSL archive dating from 1878 to1945, and from 1952 to1957, were measured and supplied by the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Snowpack and snowfall measurements were taken at Summit Station from 1878 through 1927, and at Norden from 1927 on. From 1879 to 1897, and 1901, the maximum snowpack depth was estimated. Current CSSL methodology mandates that new snow is measured twice a day, at 0800 and 1600 Pacific Standard Time. The depth of the new snow is probed with a rule at the four corners of a snow board. [The snow board is piece of plastic-covered plywood, .25m2 in area.] The four depths are recorded and averaged, the board is then cleaned off and replaced on the snowpack surface.

Information from: Randall S. Osterhuber, Climatic Summary of Donner Summit, California, Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, October 1993

All photos from the Collection of Mark McLaughlin

1959 Ski Championship.jpg : Photo of Squaw Valley, site of the 1959 North American Ski Championships.

1959 Skier.jpg:  World class skier practicing at Squaw Valley in Feb. 1959, during North American ski championships held at Squaw.

Feb. jpg:  An original letter that suggests several snowfall records may have been broken during the exceptional Feb. 1959 snowfall event.

1-5-82 surface map. Jpg :  Surface weather map of 1982 record snow storm

Surface wx map jan 1982. jpg:  the surface weather maps for the Jan. 4 and 5, 1982, 24-hour record snowfall. Moisture plume is apparent

1982 50 highway. Jpg:  This is a San Francisco Chronicle photo of Highway 50 traffic stalled at South Lake Tahoe during the 24-hour snowfall event.

Tamarack Bldg. jpg = The Tamarack weather station is located at 8,000 feet on the upper west slope of the Sierra.

Donner Summit Snowfall chart. Jpg = This snowfall chart from Donner Summit for the April 1880 snowfall record.

1880 Train derailment. Jpg = Derailed trains were a common occurrence during April 1880.

1907 Truckee River flood. Jpg = March 1907 Truckee River flood. Every bridge except for the Virginia Street Bridge (pictured here), was washed out on the Truckee, Carson and Walker rivers.

Credit: Nevada Historical Society

1911 wx map. Jpg =  This surface weather map from The Sacramento Bee, Jan. 11, 1911, shows a strong low pressure system centered over the panhandle of Idaho, and a high pressure cell located off the southern California coast. The closely-spaced isobars over central and northern California represent strong westerly winds.  

1911 Storm news headline. Jpg = newspaper headline for the 1911 Tamarack snowfall record.   January 12, 1911 Sparks Tribune (Sparks, Nevada)