Tahoe Snowstorm 2008

This past weekend’s storm dumped from 5 feet to 11 feet of snow in the Sierra, with the highest totals around Kirkwood Ski Resort south of Lake Tahoe, Milne said. The storm continued into Saturday, finally winding down Sunday afternoon. Tuesday brought another round of snow, with several more inches having fallen by evening. The ski areas needed this- a nice heavy base with this colder shot of snow to make for fun powder skiing.  Here are links to current Tahoe ski conditions:

Sierra-at-Tahoe 7.5′ storm total
Squaw Valley 5′ snow total
Kirkwood up to 11′ snow total
Mammoth up to 7′ storm total
Heavenly up to 8′ snow total 
Northstar up to 5′ storm total 
Mount Rose up to 6′ snow total

Squaw Valley Avalanche
Two skiers were injured at Squaw Valley ski resort Saturday when a mass of snow gave way on the resort’s black diamond “KT22” run. A friend who had skiied the run that day reported that the skiier floated on top of the snow and a friend arrived at the scene first to help. It appeared he had broken his legs. This had followed ski patrol’s avalanche control triggered in the area earlier that Saturday morning, intending to make it safe for skiers. In higher elevations, avalanche warnings were posted for the backcountry of the central Sierra.
“If you take the wind gusts, the snowfall and all of it together, it’s definitely one of the biggest storms we’ve experienced in a number of years,” said meteorologist Scott McGuire with the National Weather Service. “The 165 mph wind gust is very impressive, no one here’s heard of a bigger one.”
– AP

Incline Village, Nevada
We saw from 3′ at lake level to about 6′ in higher elevations and atop Mt. Rose. The storm came in with a vengance friday afternoon, and led to white out conditions by the evening commute home. We waited in a long line at the store- Raley’s nearly sold out an entire aisle of bread, milk, eggs and other staples. Luckily, the video rental store was open and had a few DVD’s left, in case cable and satellite went out (we never did loose power). The storm let up briefly Saturday morning, before slamming us again with another 1-3′ of snow. Sunday saw snow showers on and off in North Lake Tahoe, and the sun broke out in Reno, where a blanket of white covered the entire valley and Washoe Range. The second storm brought colder, lighter snow with temps down to 11 degrees by nightfall at the Mount Rose pass. This week will be great skiing, once the snow settles and avalanche danger subsides.