APPLEGATE, Calif. — “Snowbound” was not a term Stephen Kulieke thought he would hear at the end of California’s driest year in a century, but that’s precisely the position the Sierra City resident found himself in this week. “It’s snowmaggedon,” said Kulieke, 71, whose mountain cabin was piled under at least 4 feet of powder Monday afternoon amid record-breaking snowfall in the Sierra Nevada. “It’s just beyond belief how much snow there is.”The small community where he and his husband, Jeff, spend much of their time is about 50 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe at a 4,100-foot elevation. The area has been impassable for days thanks to a series of winter storms, and electricity has been intermittent since Sunday, he said. Kulieke, a columnist for the weekly Mountain Messenger newspaper, was using a generator to power his cellphone and refrigerator, and a fireplace to keep the house warm. But after months of wildfires and drought, he said the steady pounding of snow is a welcome change.“This is a good thing for California,” he said: “We’re certainly starting out this winter in a big way. We don’t know if it’s going to sustain itself, but already we’re in pretty good shape.”
“It’s snowmaggedon,” said Stephen Kulieke, whose mountain cabin was piled under at least 4 feet of snow Monday.(Stephen Kulieke)
The record snow comes as a much-needed surprise for the bone-dry West, where only months ago, officials put residents under a state of drought emergency amid increasingly dry conditions. During the long, hot summer, rivers and reservoirs dried up, and once-green fields sat fallow and turned to dust. But December roared in like a lion, with back-to-back storms dumping feet of snow across the Sierra Nevada and other mountain areas of California, prompting road closures and snarling holiday travel.Officials at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab at Donner Pass on Monday said the area’s snowfall totals had surpassed the previous December record of 179 inches set in 1970. By Tuesday morning, the lab had received a whopping 202.1 inches of snow in December — and counting — making it the third snowiest month on record at the lab.
The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab in Soda Springs, Calif., smashed the previous record of 179 inches of snow set in December 1970 with a new total of 202.1 inches.(UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab)
“It’s great news,” said Andrew Schwartz, the station manager and lead scientist at the lab. “But I think cautious optimism is the name of the game right now.” According to Schwartz, the month’s earlier storms were driven by a high-pressure system sitting off the coast of California. Another high-pressure system off Alaska has been “slinging moisture” at the state this week.The result is that snowfall at the lab since Oct. 1 — the start of California’s water year — is at 258% of average, he said. Almost all of it came in December.Though welcome, the snowfall has made a mess. Rockfalls, road closures and multi-car pileups befell the state as the latest storm barreled from north to south. Several highways and mountain passes were closed, including such major arteries as Interstate 80, which remained closed Tuesday from Colfax to the Nevada state line.Officials in Placer County said they were still searching for a 43-year-old ski shop worker in Truckee named Rory Angelotta, who was last seen heading out to ski on Christmas morning. Rescue personnel have been stymied by strong winds, whiteout flurries and frigid temperatures. “It’s overcast with snow flurries, and we definitely can’t fly any aerial units up there,” Sgt. Mike Powers of the Placer County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday morning. Travelers also met with myriad frustrations, as many people looking to fly home after the holidays faced canceled flights, a casualty of both the storm and a new surge of coronavirus cases fueled by the Omicron variant. Those hitting the highways encountered blockades amid hazardous conditions, with some expressing concern that mapping software was sending drivers onto dangerous, poorly maintained mountain roads in efforts to avoid road closures. On Tuesday, weary but hopeful travelers and locals pulled into a Valero gas station south of Colfax off I-80’s Applegate exit in hopes of snacks and fuel. But with no power, the pumps were off and the station closed.“We haven’t had power since yesterday morning,” said Zach Stein, 33, who lives in nearby Weimar. “There are downed trees and power lines.”Erin Morgan and her husband, Jaime Labeiga, drove from their home in Petaluma in hopes of traveling to the house they rented in Truckee with his sister Sophie Labeiga and her boyfriend, Miguel Escorca. They knew they were unlikely to make it when they left the Bay Area on Tuesday morning but wanted to at least show Escorca snow.“I’ve never seen snow,” said Escorca, who lives in Miami.As they drove past Auburn and continued east on I-80, their hopes began to rise that maybe they could get through after all.“We were driving and there was no snow, no snow, and then bam — tons of snow,” Morgan said.With cars being turned around, the four of them pulled over at the gas station for a snowball fight and to take pictures with a deserted snowman.“Clearly, we weren’t the only ones with this idea,” Morgan said, pointing at the snowman. “I guess we will just head back after this.”Yet the massive amount of snow is still only a start for California, which has to make up for a massive moisture deficit before it can chip away at the drought, Schwartz said. Though snowfall for Tuesday was high, it still was only about 68% of what the state expects each year.“It’s definitely amazing that we’ve been able to break this record, but ultimately, we can’t really depend on it to do anything to the drought just yet,” he said.Earlier this year, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that climate change was contributing to dwindling snowpack across the state and that winters of low snow, or even no snow, could become a regular occurrence in California in as little as 35 years. Whether the current deep snowpack will last until the spring and summer — when the state’s water regulators typically lean on it as a critical source of supplies — depends on several factors, including temperatures. “We really need the upcoming months to be just as wet as this one for us to start really pulling out of this drought,” Schwartz said.
Jared Abelson waves to his son, Merrick, 4, after a snowstorm in Tahoe Donner. Abelson had to use snowshoes to get out onto his deck.(Catherine Dang)
For residents like Jared Abelson, an avid skier with a home in the Tahoe Donner neighborhood of Truckee, the waist-high snow was cause for celebration. “This is probably one of the best things that could happen to the state after the drought,” said Abelson, 39. “Most of our water comes from Sierra snowmelt, so we need this. Especially after the dry November. I live for this stuff.” Abelson said he made it to a grocery store in Truckee on Sunday, which was running on a generator and had been nearly picked clean of supplies. He was able to secure enough provisions to hunker down at the house with his family of eight, including his wife, children and in-laws. But temperatures quickly dropped into the teens and single digits as a storm hit Sunday night, and electricity in the area was intermittent, he said. Everyone gathered around a small fireplace that had already been running for four days straight.“We hung blankets in front of the windows, put towels around the doorjambs and put other blankets on the floors just trying to keep the heat in,” Abelson said. Still, he was glad for what the snow means for California, and said the family was passing the time playing with the kids, ages 4 and 8 months, and snowshoeing and shoveling. His excitement will likely be met with even more snow: The National Weather Service on Tuesday said another storm was rolling in this week. Winter weather watches and storm advisories will be in effect in the Sierra and other mountain areas intermittently through week’s end, officials said. Some, like Kulieke in Sierra City, are glad for the moisture. Kulieke said he spent 10 straight weeks this year writing about wildfires, including the Dixie fire, which burned nearly 1 million acres not far from where his cabin now sits beneath a mountain of snow. “What’s the old expression? Look out what you ask for — you might get it,” he joked. His husband has already trounced him in Scrabble several times, he said, so he was passing the hours in his study working on his next column for the paper, which will be a reflection on the events of 2021. “It’s daunting how both nature and a pandemic can bring us to a standstill,” he said as he watched the steady snow falling outside his window. “We’re going into a new year in a way that we didn’t anticipate, and it has challenges and also opportunity. And that’s a good metaphor for our lives generally right now.” Gutierrez reported from Applegate, Calif., and Smith from Los Angeles.