Holiday pass closure

[Drew Wiley]

Kaiser Pass in Sierra Natl Forest is slated to be closed over the Memorial Day holiday due to snow hazards. The delay is unusual, but gives a
clue to potential temporary closures on other road passes like Tioga or Sonora if the storm lingers.

[John Kasaian]

Lots of unsettled weather in the Sierra today and yesterday. Marvelous cloud formations!

[tgtaylor]

Beautiful and picturesque Cumulus patterns floated over the SF Bay today which is seldom seen here as opposed to the solid grey marine layer which is common. Just seeong them made you wish you had your camera with you to photograph them.

Thomas

[Willie]

Prune pickers and your silly fear of snow...

[EdWorkman]

Here's the chp site as of 08:30 Wednesday

http://cad.chp.ca.gov/Traffic.aspx Hiways 108 and 120 closed due to snow at 5:30 pm 23 May still showing

[Drew Wiley]

Hi Willie. When we do pick prunes and it's a clear enough Spring day, the elevation difference between the orchard down on the valley floor and the higher peaks
on the skyline is over 13,000 feet. The relatively few road passes are up around 10,000 ft. So what we lack in latitude we possess in altitude. On a "normal" year (not a drought year) it's not unusual to have the Memorial Day plow through the pass constitute a twenty foot deep cut. In fact, the deepest annual snowfalls ever recorded on earth prior to instruments being installed in remote parts of the Alaska Range were here in the Sierra Nevada, over 90 feet! Snowdrifts in the back country can amount to a couple hundred feet deep on wetter years. Donner Pass, infamous for its winter cuisine, is only half the altitude of the southern half of the range. But on all my SUMMER vacations in the high Sierra over the past five years, there has been only one day it didn't snow on me, and that was simply because on that particular day I was at somewhat lower elevation, nearing the trailhead. Do you grow prunes in North Dakota too? That
would seem a bit difficult in a state where the highest peak is a prarie dog mound.

[John Kasaian]

Prune pickers and your silly fear of snow...
If it weren't for snow there wouldn't be any prune trees. The snow pack is what provides us with water for crops. Rain it what keeps the native grasses alive. In the San Joaquin, we want snow in the Sierra.

[Drew Wiley]

Gopher mounds don't constitute very good ski slopes either. But I've got enough problems just making up my mind where to go this summer. In some places there's a fine line between post-mosquito convenience and intermediate drinking water streams being just dried up. But it's always fires that seem to ruin a trip.
They can start way down below and siphon smoke all the way up the canyons to the top. I'm sneezing enough here from a shopping that just burned down clear across the Bay. The wind brings the smoke right across. I lived through so many big forest fires that I have gotten quite sensitive to smoke. But there will never
be enough water in the Valley. The more that gets allocated to the Valley, the more things just get overdeveloped, increasing demand rather than conserving water. So so many times I have wished that I could have seen the Central Valley and the lower canyons before the dams came. But since they did, I got to see
lots and lots of lovely orchards that are now under asphalt.