“Eleven on the sketch meter. People can die digging
out their driveway!”
The good news is: The fierce Pacific storms that bent
palm trees, tore off roofs and caused heaps of trouble along
coastal California marched inland and dumped heaps of snow in the
Sierras and hopefully put a serious dent in the
drought.
California’s water supply is all up in that snowpack and five to
eight feet of snow eased worries that California’s need for
38,000,000,000 gallons of water a day (yeah, 38 billion gallons,
every day) will not be met and California might return to: “If it’s
yellow then it’s mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.”
And nobody wants that.
The bad news is, all the snow flocking the Sierras is attracting
flocks of powder hounds and families who might be unaware of just
how dangerous several feet of fresh-dumped snow can be.
Ken “Skindog” Collins esq (we don’t know when he got a law
degree) is a powder hound who hit the Sierras and found more than
he bargained for.
At 9:00 PM on Sunday the 26th of December, Collins found himself
boxed in by snow on Boxing Day. He most likely took this photo
earlier in the day, and sent it from his car, stuck in snow and
traffic.
The next morning, at 8:39 AM PST, Collins appeared to have
broken through and appeared to be in a parking lot somewhere. He
made a Public Service Announcement from behind the wheel of his
large automobile, sipping on a cup of coffee, wearing a hood over
his Volcom cap.
Boys! Update! As you know, there’s a massive storm we just
had in the Sierras. Eight foot plus, super light and fluffy, killer
snow. Very dangerous. Eleven on the sketch meter. Like don’t
go in the back country is like common sense. But don’t go walking
around your house right now. There’s an avalanche on every single
rooftop on the condo you’re staying at, the house you’re staying at
even at the resort you’re in right now. There could be a half ton
of snow falling on you or your child and it could suffocate you.
People can die digging out their driveway. It’s that dangerous, so
be very mindful. Don’t go walking around under trees that look like
they could drop two tons of snow on you. Huh. I know it sounds
silly but don’t let your kids go have a snowball fight
unsupervised. Seriously. It’s like letting them swim on the beach
with 100-foot waves. It’s like…. That dangerous. It could happen so
quick and easy. Someone could die digging out their driveway or the
side of their house. Like…seriously. Be careful. Don’t go for
a drive. Stay put. Wait this out. It will be fine. And that’s
it.
And Skindog’s warnings were correct, as the next day, newspapers
across California were headlined with reports that Interstate 80
was closed indefinitely, there was an avalanche across Highway 89,
etc. etc.
The Tahoe Daily Tribune declared this month:
“A December to remember” and reported: “South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
– This sure has been a December to remember and it will literally
go down in the record books.
Overnight snowfall rates were recorded by NWS across the
Sierra at rates of 2-4″ per hour and continuing through sunrise.
This brought snow ranges of 18-36“ 24-hr totals reported by the
resorts at the higher elevations. Lake level residents were
smothered with another 12-16” in their driveways with little room
to displace the new snow. That’s over 100“ in just 6 days!
The snowfall record for December of 1970 at the Central
Sierra Snow Lab was 179“ but with the recent burst of 39” of snow
our official totals now sit at 193“ with more on the way.”
One hundred ninety three inches of snow is more than sixteen
feet of snow, which means plenty of stored water for California,
and maybe the folks down in Lemoore won’t complain so hard when
Kelly and Co throw big roostertails and huck all that precious,
cool, clear water down at Surf Ranch, which is right in the middle
of California’s water wars.
And we’ll do the math for you: Even with 40 million people in
the state, 70% of that water is used by agriculture. And 38 billion
gallons of water a day is a whopping 13,870,000,000,000 gallons of
water a year.
That’s enough to fill Surf Ranch 13,870,000,000,000 / 15,000,000
= 924,666.66666666666666666666 times.