Categories
Tahoe Snowstorms

#273: 2017 TAHOE BLIZZARD: A POSTMORTEM

It’s snowing again today in the Tahoe Sierra — as the first in a series of 3 storms this week moves onshore. These systems will impact the region with more snow. Cumulative storm totals may reach or exceed 5 feet in the upper elevations near the Sierra Crest by next Monday, but with any luck we won’t see anywhere near that at lake level. Hopefully no one will fault me for wanting a break from shoveling massive amounts of heavy snow. Plus, after experiencing 4 days without electricity last week, I can tell you that no one in my neighborhood wants to see more falling trees taking down power lines.

At lake level in Carnelian Bay the snowpack is looking impressive for so early in the season. With any luck a break in the stormy pattern may be heading our way next week.

This January has been very productive when it comes to snowfall in the Tahoe Sierra.

Snow removal crews worked non-stop during last week’s storms so that when the crowds of people enjoying the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday took to the roads this past weekend, our regional highway system was in good shape to handle the heavy traffic.

The snow was significantly deeper than this during the Top 10 winter of 2011, but we’re off to a good start this year. At 8,911 feet in elevation, the Mt. Rose Summit on Highway 431 is the highest year-round pass in the Sierra.

Mount Rose is an extinct volcano and both the highest (10,776′) and most topographically prominent peak of the Sierra Nevada range within the state of Nevada. Despite its name, Mount Rose Ski Tahoe is located on nearby Slide Mountain. The ski resort has the highest base elevation in the Tahoe Sierra at 8,260 feet, which means that the slopes there get snow when it rains at other resorts, especially during Atmospheric River events. The resort has picked up 380 inches of snow so far this winter (31.6 feet).

The east side of the Mt. Rose Summit is a heavy snow deposition zone and prone to avalanches. Highway crews use explosives to try and control devastating slides.

Nearly 59 inches of precipitation (rain and melted snow) have fallen at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory near Donner Pass so far this winter. That is about 4 inches more than the Lab receives over the course of an entire water year (Oct. 1 –  Sept 30). The cumulative snowfall tally of 20 feet is impressive, but to make it into the Top 10 biggest winters you need a minimum of 50 feet. Check out my new book Snowbound! Legendary Winters of the Tahoe Sierra to read all about the Top 10.

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Categories
Tahoe Weather

#272 FLOOD OVER: BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT!

A Blizzard Warning is in effect for the Tahoe Sierra until tomorrow morning. Heavy snow driven by high wind has created whiteout conditions on area highways and forced I-80 in the heavy snowbelt to remain closed all day. Placer County Emergency Services is doing robo-calls to alert residents that travel on regional roadways is highly discouraged except for critical needs only. And for the third day in a row, most Tahoe ski resorts remained shut down due to flood danger followed by overwhelming snowfall and avalanche concerns.

Flood-related damage is being reported all over Northern California and Western Nevada due to heavy rain in preceding days, but despite concerns main stem river flows on the Truckee, Carson and Walker rivers did not reach the destructive level they achieved during similar conditions in 2005-06. Certainly not even close to the catastrophic New Year's Flood of 1997. And now, snow levels have dropped and reduced flow issues in Nevada. I will revisit the mid-winter flood history of our regional rivers in a future Nugget. 

Snow began to pile up in Carnelian Bay last night with heavy snow all day today.

Picked up close to 5 feet of snow in the past 30 hours here at the Lake. Snow management gets to be a full time job during storms like this!

Today's water vapor satellite image shows the deep plume of moisture being tapped by this Atmospheric River. What it doesn't show is the cold air that infiltrated our onshore flow and lowered snow levels, which began to curb flood potential.

Squaw Valley looked pretty good when I there in mid-December, but the popular KT-22 chairlift was not running due to a lack of cover. Since my visit the upper mountain has picked up an additional 12.5 feet of snow not counting today's blizzard. Once our weather settles down, skiing and snowboarding are going to be epic! Just in time for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday coming this weekend.

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Categories
Tahoe Weather

#271 FLOOD WARNING IN TAHOE SIERRA

Hydrologic conditions are ripe today and tomorrow for a major flood in the Tahoe Sierra after previous cold storms dumped close to 8 feet of snow on area resorts this week. Now, temperatures have warmed considerably since early this week as a potent Atmospheric River of moisture surges into the West Coast. During a 36 hour period that began last night we're expecting between 6 to 12 inches of water, mostly rain below 8,000 feet in elevation. NWS forecasters are warning that rivers and streams are at high risk of flooding, similar to the 2005-06 event which caused $300 million in damage to California.

Tahoe has received record amounts of precipitation so far this winter. This graphic indicates how much snow fell in little more than 4 days earlier this week. Squaw Valley USA recorded 94 inches in the past 7 days and we are expecting heavy snowfall on and off all this upcoming week. This Nugget is being rushed out the door as the power has already flickered several times this morning. 

Here in the "Banana Belt" in Carnelian Bay we picked up only 3 feet of snow during the storms this week. First "major" snow event at lake level this winter. Snow levels have trended higher this year due to the prominence of subtropical Atmospheric Rivers.

Placer County's snow management is second to none. Within a day or so after the snow stopped falling this rotary snowplow was grooming the residential streets of Carnelian Bay. 

This is today's infrared satellite image from 8 kilometers above the planet's surface. It shows the classic synoptic pattern of an Atmospheric River with moisture surging into California. A stalled, deep low pressure system off the coast of Canada is spinning in a counter-clockwise rotation bringing copious moisture up from the subtropics. If the cold Alaskan low was closer snow levels would be lower and the Tahoe Sierra would be experiencing many feet of snow as opposed to flood potential.

Statistically, the Truckee River experiences a damaging flood every 9 years or so. It's been 11 years since the 2005-06 event. This storm is right on time! This flood warning is still in the process of verifying as heavy rain and wind continues to slam the Sierra today and tonight. Depending on the actual magnitude of this "wet mantle" flood, a follow-up Nugget will draw a comparison between this event and several past major floods. Many of which also occurred duing ENSO-neutral or weak La Niña episodes. Stay tuned.

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Categories
Tahoe Weather

TAHOE NUGGET #270: WETTEST START TO WINTER ON RECORD!

Heavy rain and high-elevation snow this October and December have gone a long way to mitigating the extreme drought conditions plaguing the Tahoe Sierra. A series of strong Atmospheric Rivers from the Pacific Ocean have pumped up water levels in Lake Tahoe and for the first time in months a strong current of water is now flowing into the Truckee River. The official start to winter is still days away!

The 8-Station Index represents precipitation values for the Northern Sierra. The 28.4 inches received since October 1 is more than 50% of what the region averages in a year. In many locations the month of October was the wettest of record. One storm alone added 11 billion gallons to Lake Tahoe, raising it 3 inches. Despite the boost, Big Blue still remained more than 2 inches below its natural rim. The current pace of precipitation is better than the beginning of Winter 2011, which ultimately ranked in the Top 10 as No. 8 wettest since 1871.

One Atmospheric River in October dumped more than a foot of water on Alpine Meadows ski resort. The most recent AR this past week delivered nearly 6 inches of rain in 24 hours. Snow levels in mild AR events are often quite high, sometimes between 8,000 to 9,000 feet in elevation. With a summit near 11,000 feet, Mammoth Mountain Resort near Yosemite was slammed with nearly 5 feet of snow on Dec. 16. The State record is 68 inches in 24 hours. Compare that with Tahoe's relatively low numbers for this same event. Tahoe resorts currently boast upper mountain bases ranging from 3 to 4 feet. Mammoth Mountain's snowpack is already 11 feet deep up top.  

Dec. 7, 2016 — Lake Tahoe was below its rim and the outlet to the Truckee River was dry.

Dec. 17, 2016 — Enough rain fell to raise Big Blue over its rim by several inches, creating a robust flow of water into the Truckee River for the first time since last summer. 

Despite relatively high snow levels in recent storms, the ski slopes are looking good for this time of year. Just in time for the crush of crowds that will be showing up for the holidays.

Early December at Donner Peak as viewed from Old Highway 40.

Chris Burt is the author of Extreme Weather: A Guide and Record Book.

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Categories
Nevada Scenery

#269 RIVER FORK RANCH PRESERVE

Yesterday I spent the day in western Nevada, visiting Genoa, Carson City and Virginia City. My primary goal was getting my new book SNOWBOUND! placed in one retail outlet in Virginia City, as well as at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. Both efforts failed, but the scenery was great in the Carson Valley at the Split Fork Ranch Nature Preserve.

 

Lake Tahoe looked pretty good on my way to the Carson Valley on April 16, 2016. First decent winter in 5 years. The rocky point in the foreground is the site where eccentric millionaire George Whittell built his Thunderbird Lodge. See Nugget #110 for more about this enigmatic Tahoe character. 

 

In 2000, The Nature Conservancy secured the long-term protection of important habitats along a two-mile section of the Carson River by purchasing the 800-acre River Fork Ranch. Located at the confluence of the east and west forks of the Carson River near Genoa, the land is both a nature preserve and a working cattle operation.  Environmental efforts include floodplain protection and habitat restoration.

 

 

A legacy of unrestricted grazing, irrigation diversions and dredging of the Carson River channel resulted in degraded ecological conditions. Active restoration work is ongoing at River Fork Ranch to reverse these effects. These cattle are drinking from a diversion ditch, not the Carson River itself, which is about one mile to the southwest.

 

The preserve’s 800-acre riparian corridor and patchwork of pastures, meadows and wetlands support a robust and diverse wildlife population including bald eagles, sandhill cranes, leopard frogs, coyotes, monarch butterflies and mule deer. Upon my visit I saw hawks and a small herd of a dozen mule deer flitting around the nearby town of Genoa. As is so often the case, there were plenty of tourists eating and drinking at the stores and saloons of Genoa, but only two people at the preserve.

  

The River Fork Ranch is a great place to enjoy hiking, trail running, wildlife viewing, and of course, photography. The preserve is open to the public from dawn to dusk, daily year round.

Categories
Tahoe Weather

NEW BOOK "SNOWBOUND!"

SNOWBOUND! is not a meteorology book, but it is about weather.

This well-illustrated, 8.5″ X 11″ publication focuses on the Top 10 biggest winters in the Tahoe Sierra based on snowfall measured at Donner Pass since 1879.

Its 160 glossy pages are loaded with amazing weather facts and incredible stories of men and women struggling to cope against some of the most powerful storms on Earth.

More than 250 large contemporary photographs bring the drama to life.

This coffee table quality book is dedicated to all who love mountains in winter, and to California’s Caltrans and Donner Pass railroad crews — “Sierra Snowfighters” — who battle the Storm King every winter to keep our highways safe and our railways clear.

Purchase your autographed copy of SNOWBOUND! at local Truckee-Tahoe stores or securely online at the STORM KING website for only $34.95 including sales tax and shipping.

This book will captivate anyone who loves trains or the challenge of an epic Tahoe winter.

THE PERFECT FATHER’S DAY GIFT!

 

 

 

 

Categories
Avalanche!

#268 SQUAW VALLEY AVALANCHES

TAHOE NUGGET #268: SQUAW VALLEY
AVALANCHES

Heavy rain and snow in the past week has not
mitigated the extreme drought conditions in northern California, but it pumped
up Lake Tahoe’s low water levels and gave a much needed boost to Tahoe ski resorts
that had been limping along on life support.

Commonly known as a “Pineapple Express”
storm, the National Weather Service now refers to them as “atmospheric river
events” when describing a subtropical moisture surge from the Pacific Ocean. These
juicy systems can produce phenomenal rainfall totals, often exceeding 20
inches. This one did not, but the 10 to 15 inches that soaked the Sierra west
slope over 4 days raised an important reservoir in Sacramento by 20 feet in a short period of time. 

Lake Tahoe’s rise of about 5.5 inches in less than a week is the equivalent of 17.2 billion gallons of water or 53,000 acre-feet. That’s enough water to cover 83 square miles of land to a foot deep, about the size of Seattle, Washington.

Tahoe City picked up more than six inches of
rain while the upper mountain at Squaw Valley was hammered with five to six
feet of new snow. Kirkwood Mountain Resort near South Lake Tahoe was walloped with nearly 9 feet of snow in one week. Avalanche conditions in the backcountry are extreme. The
danger of Truckee River flooding never materialized as snow levels failed to
rise as high as predicted, which kept much of the precipitation as snow above
7,000 to 7,500 feet.

I apologize in advance to my subscribers back
east who probably have no desire to see photographs of ice or snow of any kind.

 During this warm storm, snow levels were projected to rise higher than the major passes of Donner (I-80) and Echo (Highway 50) between California and Nevada. Precipitation at Echo Summit (7,382′) turned to rain, but snow and ice persisted on Donner Pass ((7,227′) as seen here on Feb. 8, 2014. Mandatory chain controls were in force for one of the few times this winter so far.

Fresh snow at Squaw Valley finally has the ski area looking like the world class resort that it is. 

Ski patrollers keep portions of the mountain closed until all potential slides have been triggered. It is easy to imagine the deadly force that avalanches pose to skiers and snowboarders. Note skiers to the right of debris field.

Due to the heavy, wet nature of the storm and the sheer volume of snow that fell in a short period of time, much of the upper slopes at Squaw Valley were extremely unstable. Note Siberia Express chairlift tower upper right.

Wall of snow hammered trees and overran a groomed area. Note 3-foot avalanche crown below ridgeline.

Note recent dramatic spike in precipitation for the Northern Sierra for this water year so far. We still have along way to go, but snow is predicted for this weekend and it’s looking likely that a potent and cold system will hit next week.

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Categories
Climate Change

#267 TAHOE-SIERRA DROUGHT

TAHOE NUGGET #267: TAHOE-SIERRA DROUGHT

The first significant winter storm in nearly
2 months delivered heavy rain to the Tahoe-Sierra on Thursday followed by lowering
snow levels over the past 24 hours. Considering rainfall plus the new
snow’s liquid content, nearly 3 inches of water drenched the high country near
the Sierra Crest. Some locations on the West Slope picked up more than 5 inches or rain.

Snowfall amounts were a bit disappointing due
to the warm nature of the storm: much of the moisture fell as rain below 7,500
feet. Lake Tahoe resorts reported totals of 8 to 12 inches of new snow, with a maximum at
Heavenly Valley ski area where 2 feet fell on its upper mountain. Despite the storm, California’s snowpack is still only about 12% of normal for this time of year. 

This winter storm would normally be worth
little mention, but in an extremely dry winter like this one, the desiccated Sierra
watershed needs every drop or flake. The natural snow will enhance existing skiing
and boarding terrain already open due to snowmaking, but it is unlikely to make
much of a difference off-piste and in the trees. 

Northern California receives the bulk of its precipitation between Thanksgiving and Easter and these wet months are critical for establishing the Sierra snowpack which provides much of the Golden State’s water supply. The weather this winter has been so dry that Sacramento just set an all-time record for consecutive days with no precipitation during the rainy season — 52 days. (From Dec. 7, 2013 to Jan. 28, 2014.)

 

In late January 2014, the Sierra Crest has bare-bones snow cover. Looking north from Alpine Meadows ski area past Squaw Valley and towards Donner Pass.

North and east facing slopes hold snow better than west or south aspects. Depicted is Alpine Bowl at the Alpine Meadows resort. Best to stay on the groomed runs.

 

The 2014 Tahoe ski season has been mostly a man-made affair with pressurized snow guns saving the day. Rumors are spreading that Vail-owned Northstar-at-Tahoe has run out of water and its snowmaking operations will be limited moving forward.

Much has been made of the extremely dry nature of the 2013 calendar year as the driest in many parts of California. However, hydrologists, meteorologists, and water management agencies all use valuations based on a “water year” which better reflects the nature of California’s Mediterranean climate of hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. The use of a calendar year may not be consistent  with how water is measured seasonally, but it does illustrate the unprecedented lack of precipitation over the past year or two.

This infrared satellite image from 4 kilometers perfectly illustrates the stubborn high pressure ridge that has been keeping California sunny and dry for nearly 2 years now. The semi-permanent ridge normally migrates south or splits during winter months to allow weather systems into the West Coast. Note how Pacific storms ride up and over the clockwise circulation of the high and then plunge south into the heartland of the nation. This is part of the atmospheric pattern that has delivered record cold and snow to the Midwest and East Coast this winter.  

Skiers are complaining that 2014 is the worst winter in memory. Note the lack of cover away from the man-made snowmaking at Alpine Meadows from two weeks ago.

Just two years ago, however, snow conditions were even worse at Alpine Meadows at the same time of year.

Donner Ski Ranch near Donner Pass has yet to open this winter due to lack of snow cover.

Boreal Mountain Resort near Donner Pass relies heavily on snowmaking and slope grooming which has paid off handsomely this winter. Billed as the Tahoe resort closest to Sacramento, Boreal has the greatest percentage of terrain open in the Tahoe-Sierra.

It’s been bone-dry in Southern California also, but while Northern California communities are already into voluntary 20% water rationing with possible mandatory restrictions soon to come, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is at record storage throughout its whole system. Lawns there will stay green, pools full, and cars washed and shiny. The dichotomy is made possible by massive water imports from Northern California and the Colorado River. The issue has been a contentions issue between the two regions for more than a century.

UPDATE! Today (1-31-14) California announced that, due to severe drought conditions, it is halting all water deliveries through its massive State Water Project until further notice. The system supplies 25 million residents and irrigates 750,000 acres of farmland. The total cancellation is unprecedented in the State Water Project’s 54-year history. 

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Categories
Tahoe Skiing Icons

TAHOE NUGGET #266: BILL KLEIN: A SKIER'S FAREWELL

TAHOE NUGGET #266: BILL KLEIN: A SKIER’S
FAREWELL

When 19-year-old Wilhelm “Bill” Klein first
arrived on Donner Summit in the fall of 1936, he looked around and wondered,
“Where are the mountains?” Bill and his older brother Fred, both Austrian-born
ski instructors, didn’t see any towering mountains with summer snowfields like
they were used to.

Bill couldn’t fathom where it would be possible to ski
amongst the jagged volcanic cliffs and bulky granite features that comprise
much of the Summit’s rugged terrain. The Klein brothers were visiting
California at the invitation of Dr. Joel Hildebrand, a future Sierra Club
president and the U.S. Olympic team manager.

Austrian Bill Klein couldn’t fathom where someone could ski in the rugged terrain near Donner Pass.

Dr. Hildebrand had learned to alpine ski in
Europe and wanted to educate Americans in the new style of parallel skiing. The
Kleins had sent him a letter that outlined their teaching qualifications and
Hildebrand paid for their flight from Europe.

While he was giving Bill and
Fred a tour of the Tahoe-Sierra, Hildebrand assured the young men, “Don’t
worry about the cliffs and boulders. Come winter they’ll all be covered with
more than 10 feet of snow and the skiing will be great.”

Pacific-bred winter storms soon covered rocks, trees and nearly everything else with deep snow. Bill Klein then realized that the Tahoe-Sierra really was a skiers paradise.

The Sierra Club had just built their Clair
Tappaan Lodge at Norden near Donner Pass and Dr. Hildebrand was trying to convince the Klein
brothers to start a professional ski school there.

Noted ski historian Morten
Lund wrote, “It was California’s luck that the Kleins brought with them their
technique, their devotion to skiing, and their knowledge of ski mountaineering.
These talents were in very short supply in the United States in 1936. The
Kleins were matched by no more than 20 other men in the country—probably less.”

Southern Pacific Railroad was a big booster of California winter sports and ran frequent trains from the San Francisco Bay Area to the new Sierra ski operations. Circa 1933.

The brothers established their legendary Ski School
Klein that winter. They received free room and board along with 50 cents a
lesson. Most of their clients were visitors from San Francisco and the Bay Area
who stayed in nearby Soda Springs or at the Rainbow Tavern down the road. Affable, technically
skilled, and excited to be at the new frontier of alpine skiing, it’s no surprise that the Kleins
soon had more students than they could handle.

The Sierra Club installed a rope tow for their members in the 1930s.

By 1938 the Klein brothers had trained more
instructors to help staff their ski school and were teaching up to 150 skiers
every weekend. Bill Klein displayed a powerful, but graceful skiing style that
inspired his students to succeed.

American skiers were thrilled to get lessons from highly-trained European instructors like Bill Klein shown here.

Within the first few years, through their popular school the Kleins had taught parallel skiing to thousands. In 1940, Bill and Fred
Klein helped organize the California Ski Instructors Association, which made
unified teaching its goal.

In 1939, Bay Area investors (including animator Walt Disney) opened the Sugar Bowl ski resort with Austrian Hannes Schroll as ski school director. The spectacular Sugar Bowl was located on the south side of Highway 40 and the transcontinental railroad, about a mile from where Bill and Fred Klein were teaching skiing. After Schroll left Sugar Bowl for other pursuits Bill Klein would take over the job.

Sugar Bowl is the “Grand Dame” of Sierra resorts and was California’s first true alpine ski area. Named for the prodigious accumulations of snow in the region, Sugar Bowl receives nearly 40 feet of snow a year, more than any other Tahoe resort.

During World War II, Bill served with the 10th
Mountain Division as a technical master sergeant in charge of the instructors
who were teaching American troops to ski. But when the time came for the 10th
to be deployed to Europe, Klein was detached from his unit. His superior
officers recognized Klein’s command of the German language and his ability to
handle men, and in 1944 he was assigned to a German prisoner of war camp in New
Mexico.

Among its many amenities, at its 1939 opening Sugar Bowl boasted California’s first chairlift, a single that lifted skiers nearly 1,500 feet to the top of Mt. Disney.

After the war, Fred Klein left the ski industry and started a career in
aeronautical engineering. Bill returned to the Sierra Club’s Clair Tappaan Lodge, but when
Hannes Schroll retired as Sugar Bowl ski school director Bill took over the
position.

In 1947, a European named Dennis Wiles got a
job at Sugar Bowl working as a cook. He was a decent skier and soon asked Bill
Klein to train him as an instructor. Klein obliged and Wiles worked at Sugar
Bowl teaching skiing for several seasons.

Nearly 40 years later it turned out
that Dennis Wiles was really Georg Gaertner, a former German prisoner of war
who avoided repatriation by escaping from the New Mexico POW camp that Klein
had worked at. Klein never recognized him and later said that Gaertner had
removed the FBI’s wanted poster from the nearby Norden post office shortly after
his arrival at Sugar Bowl. Gaertner was later pardoned and wrote a book called Hitler’s Last Soldier in America.

FBI wanted poster for Georg Gaertner, a Sugar Bowl ski instructor.

Klein headed the Sugar Bowl ski school until
1957, when at the age of 40 he turned the position over to Badger Pass ski
school director Luggi Foeger who was ready to move up to a bigger mountain.

Bill ran a fashionable ski and clothing shop at Sugar Bowl until 1993, and also
a ski and sporting goods store in San Francisco, which he sold in 1987. In the
off seasons, Klein worked as a successful real estate developer in the Bay
Area.

Bill Klein sure had style, circa 1946.

Klein has been honored with many awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award by the
Professional Ski Instructors of America and the Charley Proctor Award for his
contributions to the sport by the North American Ski Journalists Association.

Bill Klein with former student and Donner Summit local Starr Walton. Starr competed for the United States in the women’s downhill during the 1964 Winter Olympics where she finished first among the Americans.

Bill Klein gave up skiing at the age of 90,
and retired with his wife Anneliese in Incline Village, Nevada. One of
America’s first and best known ski instructors, Bill died peacefully at home on
November 23, 2013 at age 96.  

Bill Klein with his wife Anneliese, circa 2009. Bill had a well-deserved reputation as a “Gentlemen’s Gentleman.”

*Material
excerpted from my award-winning book “Longboards
to Olympics: A Century of Tahoe Winter Sports.”

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Categories
Weather History

#265 GEORGE STEWART’S WEATHER NOVEL: "STORM"

TAHOE NUGGET #265: GEORGE STEWART’S WEATHER NOVEL: STORM

In the early 1990s while going to school at the University
of Nevada in Reno, I had a conversation with John James, an associate geography
professor at UNR, the Nevada State Climatologist, and my academic advisor. I
told him that I wanted to produce a book on the weather history of the Sierra
Nevada. He said that it was a great idea, it would be an important contribution
to regional meteorology and climatology, and that he wished he had done it
himself. The book never happened, but I have been writing about weather ever
since.

As a starting point for the weather history project, John
James, who over the years became a good friend, suggested that I read George
Rippey Stewart’s classic 1941 novel “Storm.” The storyline is based on a
fictional Pacific weather system that batters drought-stricken California in January
1935 with rain, wind and snow.

Cover jacket from my copy of Stewart’s Storm, 1947 edition.

I am currently working on an illustrated Tahoe-Sierra Snow
book for publication next summer that will include profiles of the Top 10
snowiest winters at Donner Pass. (1935 ranks #8 with a total of 56 feet.) Over
the past two weeks I’ve been perusing newspaper archives to study weather
activity from that year for the new book.

Although it’s been more than 20 years since I read Storm, I quickly recognized real-life
weather events in 1935 that most likely provided important story ideas for the
dramatic subplots that Stewart utilized in his novel a few years later. I’ve
included a few in this Nugget.

In his book, Stewart does not use this October 1934 aviation incident. Sensitivity to the victim’s families may have made the topic off limits, as well as military secrecy before WWII.  In November 1942, an AT-7 Navigator aircraft carrying four crew members on a routine training flight disappeared over the Southern Sierra. Sixty-three years later, in 2005, the body of airman Leo M. Mustonen was discovered near a receding glacier in remote Kings Canyon. In 2007 the remains of Ernest G. Munn was discovered as more ice melted. Munn had enlisted in the Army at age 23 to serve in World War II. Before he left he kissed his sisters and told his mother never to cut her long hair. His mother lived to 102, never cut her hair and died awaiting word on his fate.

Stewart’s main character and protagonist is a powerful, extra-tropical storm. He tracks the weather system from its inception in the western Pacific Ocean to its rampage over California, where it flooded part of the Sacramento Valley; stalled a
westbound transcontinental streamliner train by track washout; and dumped 20
feet of snow on Highway 40 near Donner Pass, shutting down the road. Stewart
named his mythical superstorm Maria, pronounced “Ma-rye-a.”

Railroad crews shovel snow from the roof of a building along the Southern Pacific RR tracks in Truckee in 1935. 

Reading Storm in
the 1990s, a half century after its release, I was struck by its prescient tone,
especially when compared to the epic winter of 1952 that followed 11 years after
the book’s publication. During January 1952, a powerful Pacific storm just like
“Maria” barreled into California. And in an impressive example of life-imitating-art, the Sacramento Valley was flooded, a luxury streamliner train
became snowbound in deep drifts, and Highway 40 was blocked for 30 consecutive
days by snow. That Jan. snowstorm in ’52 dumped 154 inches on Donner Pass in 8 days.

Stewart wrote about an electrical lineman named Rick who slips and falls from a pole while repairing a broken wire on the Central Transcontinental Lead. Rick’s sternum was injured when he fell onto his ski poles and the injury led to the lineman’s death in the snow.

Storm is often cited as the inspiration to
US Navy meteorologists in assigning female names to Pacific tropical storms
during World War II. The book’s best-selling paperback edition was a popular
read for deployed troops. After the war, the practice of naming these weather
systems shifted to Atlantic hurricanes and eventually to tropical storms around
the globe. 

Stewart went easy on his characters at times. In 1935 a highway worker died in an avalanche, but in his fictionalized version two snowplow crewmen are buried in a slide, but both walk away unhurt.

Stewart’s “Maria” also inspired the song, “They Call the
Wind Maria” written for the 1951 musical Paint
Your Wagon starring Clint Eastwood. The popular song has been covered by
many artists, including most recently Mariah Carey.

Heavy rain and snow during the winter of 1935 was good news for California and Lake Tahoe. The region had been decimated by years of drought and Lake Tahoe was at its lowest level in history. Giant pumps were being used to suck water out of the lake to feed the Truckee River. 

George R. Stewart is the author of several good books
related to California history, including The
California Trail, Donner Pass,
and his Donner Party classic Ordeal by
Hunger. He wrote more than 20 books in all.

Stewart adapts his story to this headline for a young Reno couple reported missing during a big snowstorm. In Storm, Max Arnim and his love interest “Jen” had attempted to drive over Donner Pass, lost control of the vehicle, and crashed over an embankment. Their car and bodies were found days after the storm.

In February 1935, the $5 million dirigible Macon crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Point Sur, about 120 miles south of San Francisco. Lt. Commander Herbert V. Wiley told reporters that he didn’t think wind caused his 785-foot long airship to dive 3,000 feet and crash stern-first into the ocean. However, his second in command, Lt. Commander Jesse L. Kenworth, blamed the incident on “a heavy wind gust.” This is another incident of a weather-related military mishap that Stewart declined to develop as a subplot in his book. Protecting the U.S. military was every citizen’s patriotic duty in the late 1930s in the lead-up to the United States’ entry into world War II. 

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