Snow in the Sierras this Weekend
Feb. 29th, 2024 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThere's a winter storm coming to California today through this weekend. Here in the SF Bay Area that means rain and cooler than normal temperatures. In the Sierra Nevada mountains that means snow. And this storm is expected to bring a lot of snow— up to 10 feet (3 meters). Here's a forecast chart I saw this morning from the National Weather Service (NWS):
As an aside, I really like this diagram. One of my areas of study in grad school many years ago was the visual representation of data. This diagram is much more interesting than the typical chart snowing a map with color coding indicating amount of snowfall predicted. This one doesn't cover as large a geographical area but it does kind of tell a story: If you were to drive on Interstate 80 over the Sierra Nevada, how much new snowfall would you encounter?
For anyone who's actually driven I-80 a bunch of times (raises hand) the names of towns on this chart are all recognizable and help with visualization. Auburn, for example, is 30 miles west of downtown Sacramento. It's the first town you hit after leaving the Sac metro area and ascending into the foothills, at about 1,000' elevation. Colfax is a smaller town further up. And Donner Pass is, of course, the highest point on the road. (Always bring food to Donner Pass, you'll feed everyone one way or another.)
As for weather here in the SF Bay Area.... This storm is not one of the "Atmospheric River" or "Pineapple Express" rainstorms we often get in the winter. Instead of coming straight across the Pacific Ocean and hitting the coast (i.e., us) first this one's sweeping down from Alaska following jet stream as it bends south. The Sierras will get the brunt of it, we'll get a lighter version. Forecasts are predicting maybe an inch of rain locally with high temperatures low in the 50s— much cooler than normal for the start of March. So much for lazy yellow journalists trying to tell us winter is over.
As an aside, I really like this diagram. One of my areas of study in grad school many years ago was the visual representation of data. This diagram is much more interesting than the typical chart snowing a map with color coding indicating amount of snowfall predicted. This one doesn't cover as large a geographical area but it does kind of tell a story: If you were to drive on Interstate 80 over the Sierra Nevada, how much new snowfall would you encounter?
For anyone who's actually driven I-80 a bunch of times (raises hand) the names of towns on this chart are all recognizable and help with visualization. Auburn, for example, is 30 miles west of downtown Sacramento. It's the first town you hit after leaving the Sac metro area and ascending into the foothills, at about 1,000' elevation. Colfax is a smaller town further up. And Donner Pass is, of course, the highest point on the road. (Always bring food to Donner Pass, you'll feed everyone one way or another.)
As for weather here in the SF Bay Area.... This storm is not one of the "Atmospheric River" or "Pineapple Express" rainstorms we often get in the winter. Instead of coming straight across the Pacific Ocean and hitting the coast (i.e., us) first this one's sweeping down from Alaska following jet stream as it bends south. The Sierras will get the brunt of it, we'll get a lighter version. Forecasts are predicting maybe an inch of rain locally with high temperatures low in the 50s— much cooler than normal for the start of March. So much for lazy yellow journalists trying to tell us winter is over.
