52 feet and counting: Lake Tahoe grapples with ‘ginormous’ snowpack

Rather than use a yardstick, Deanne Maas measures each new snowstorm at her house atop Donner Summit by carefully examining the widening cracks in her drywall.

Some of them now reveal the underlying studs — signs that more than a dozen feet of snow piled outside her house are buckling the walls and roof of her home. She can hardly see outside anymore, as snow covers almost all of her windows.

“I feel like I live in a snow cave,” said Maas, 46.

Even for a place so accustomed to receiving some of the highest seasonal snowfall totals in the continental United States, this winter is a doozy. The Lake Tahoe area is buckling under hundreds of inches of snowfall amid one of its most powder-filled seasons on record, all part of a historic run of atmospheric rivers and punishing arctic blasts that have filled reservoirs, flooded cities and eased drought conditions across California.

A snow-topped bus stop in Alpine Meadows, Calif., provides a glimpse at the Lake Tahoe region’s immense snow pack this winter, Saturday, March 10, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Amtrak passengers exit the icicle-rimmed Truckee depot as the long-delayed California Zephyr train arrives, Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Cameron Hollabaugh and Ethan Gotts, with their canine companion Kaya, leave work through deep snow-drifts in Truckee, Calif., Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Snow is cleared from the roadway in Soda Springs, Calif., as an atmospheric river storm approaches the Sierra, Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Snow falls in Truckee, Calif., Saturday, March 11, 2023, as residents check their mail at the downtown post office. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Snow falls in Truckee, Calif., as passengers wait to board a Greyhound bus in Truckee, Calif.,Thursday, March 9, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

The damage from a collapsed roof on a commercial warehouse in Tahoe City, Calif., is visible through the collapsed garage door, Friday, March 10, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

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The latest storms this weekend pushed the snowpack atop Donner Summit into fourth place on the list of snowiest seasons for the area, topping 624 inches since Oct. 1 at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra …read more

Source:: The Mercury News