January snowfall in Lake Tahoe not a record

People are having a hard time finding places to put snow. Photo/LTN

By Kathryn Reed

It seems to depend on how long one has lived in the Tahoe-Truckee area whether the snow brings a smile or a grimace.

For those who have been in the area for decades, the January storms trigger memories of winters gone by – about how this feels normal. For those who are more recent transplants, they are used to the drought years being normal.

With only one week left in the month and based on the current forecast, it’s doubtful any records will be set in the Lake Tahoe Basin for moisture – at least for January.

Records have not been kept that long for South Lake Tahoe, so meteorologists look to numbers in Tahoe City as their gauge.

This January is the second wettest on record for Tahoe City. As of Jan. 23 Tahoe City had received 21.29 inches of liquid precipitation. This is a combination of rain and snowmelt. The record of 22.82 inches was set in 1969.

Tahoe City this year has received 135.5 inches of snow (11.29 feet). That’s good enough for fifth place in the record book for a January. The record is 238 inches, set in 1916. Fourth place is 162 inches. Forecasters don’t believe that number will be touched this month.

Ski resorts will have even higher totals. For example, Sierra-at-Tahoe is boasting about 24 feet of snow in the first 24 days of 2017.

                                                                         Source: National Weather Service Sacramento

The last wave of storms was more typical of Sierra winter storms, while earlier this month it was a strong atmospheric river that engulfed much of the West.

“Right now there are no big systems on the horizon for the end of the month,” Dawn Johnson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno, told Lake Tahoe News. “There are some weak ones, so maybe we’ll get a couple more inches.”

A few snow showers will be found throughout the region on Tuesday, with a weak system touching the area on Wednesday, according to Johnson. Sunshine should dominate the weekend. An inversion could make the valley areas colder than at higher elevations.

“The really long range forecast is probably the first week of February we are going to get wet again,” Johnson said.

It’s too early to know where that storm will land and what amount of moisture it might bring.

For the immediate future, temperatures will not be increasing to the point where flooding is a concern. But wet roadways are likely to become icy each night with the melt-freeze ritual. Expect black ice. The daytime highs through the weekend are not expected to be much above freezing, while overnight lows could be in single digits in various parts of the Tahoe-Truckee area.