A massive blizzard howls in the Sierra Nevada. High winds and heavy snow close roads and ski resorts
TRUCKEE, Calif. — A powerful blizzard that a meteorologist termed “as bad as it gets” howled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, closing a long stretch of Interstate 80 in Northern California, forcing ski resorts to shut down, and leaving tens of thousands of homes without power.
More than 10 feet (3 meters) of snow was expected at higher elevations, National Weather Service meteorologist William Churchill said Saturday, creating a “life-threatening concern” for residents near Lake Tahoe and blocking travel on the key east-west freeway.
“It’s a blizzard,” said Dubravka Tomasin, a resident of Truckee, California, for more than a decade. “It’s pretty harrowing.”
Kyle Frankland, a veteran snow plow driver, said several parts of his rig broke as he cleared wet snow underneath piles of powder.
“I’ve been in Truckee 44 years. This is a pretty good storm,” Frankland said. “It’s not record-breaking by any means, but it’s a good storm.”
Churchill said snow totals by late Sunday would range from 5 to 12 feet (1.5 to 3.6 meters), with the highest accumulations at elevations above 5,000 feet (1,500 meters). Lower elevations were inundated with heavy rain. He called the storm an “extreme blizzard for the Sierra Nevada, in particular, as well as other portions of Nevada and even extending into Utah and portions of western Colorado.” But he said he didn’t expect records to be broken.
“It’s certainly just about as bad as it gets in terms of the snow totals and the winds,” Churchill said. “It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
Thomas Petkanas, a bartender at Alibi Ale Works in Incline Village, Nevada, said about 3 feet (1 meter) of snow had fallen by midday Saturday. He said patrons shook off snow as they arrived at the Lake Tahoe brewpub and restaurant.
“It’s snowing pretty hard out there, really windy, and power is out to about half the town,” Petkanas said by telephone. “We’re one of the few spots open today.”
Earlier, the weather service warned that blowing snow was creating “extremely dangerous to impossible” driving conditions, with wind gusts in the high mountains at more than 100 mph (160 kph).
Avalanche danger was “high to extreme” in backcountry areas through Sunday evening throughout the central Sierra and greater Lake Tahoe area, the weather service said.
California authorities on Friday shut down 100 miles (160 kilometers) of I-80, the main route between Reno and Sacramento, due to “spin outs, high winds, and low visibility.” There was no estimate when the freeway would reopen from the California-Nevada border west of Reno to near Emigrant Gap, California. Travel was treacherous east of the Sierra, where CalTrans also cited “multiple spin outs and collisions” and “whiteout conditions,” as it closed 90 miles (145 kilometers) of U.S. 395 from near Bishop in the Owens Valley to Bridgeport, north of Mono Lake.
