What a striking climatic surprise Mother Nature presented over the weekend in Truckee, California. Bucking characteristic springtime weather patterns, a vigorous storm system swept across the San Francisco Bay area, unfurling a splendidly soggy drapery of rain and snow. Not only did this unusual meteorological event shackle Northern California’s mountain highways into a standstill, but it also etched a sparkling new single-day snowfall record into the annals of the Sierra Nevada’s 2023/2024 winter season.
By Sunday morning, this aqueous tantrum had washed itself mostly clear out of Golden State’s bounds. Nevertheless, stirring within its wake was a cautionary note from officials: roadways would maintain a slippery sheen, courtesy of some bountiful blizzard deposits. Indeed, several territories of the Sierra saw cumulations of around two feet or 60 centimeters of snow.
Drawing on a playful metaphor, the University of California, Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab queried on the digital bulletin board X, “Did anyone have the snowiest day of the 2023/2024 season being in May on their winter bingo card?” The essence of this question became more vivid when revealed that Sunday’s generous 26.4 inches (67 centimeters) of snowfall trounced the previous second-snowiest day of the season, March 3rd, by an impressive margin of 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters).
The chilling onslaught manifested harsh realities on the ground. Treacherous driving conditions on Saturday precipitated the shutdown of several significant highways threading the vicinity of Lake Tahoe. This included the trans-Sierra arterial Interstate 80 leaping majestically over the Donner Summit.
The stormy spectacle also diluted itself to the Bay Area. Here, flood advisories became the order of the day as rainfall measuring up to an inch (2.5 centimeters) tumbled down. Meanwhile, the mercury in thermometers slid into the low 40s (around 5 degrees Celsius), according to reports from the National Weather Service. Wind gusts with an unruly energy, reaching up to 40 mph (64 kph), were noted on Saturday near metropolitan San Francisco.
Not to be left out of the atmospheric opera, Southern California experienced the storm’s tail end, with evidence of light rain and blustering winds sweeping across its expanse. However, it was forecasted that the curtains would swiftly close on this tempestuous performance. As if in compensation for the storm’s unseasonal cold, drier and warmer conditions were outspokenly expected to dominate the state’s weather narrative in the coming week.
