Record-breaking Sierra snow buries towns, closes highways
COLFAX, Calif. — “Snowbound” was not a term Stephen Kulieke thought he would hear at the end of California’s driest year in a century, but that’s precisely the position the Sierra City resident found himself in this week.
“It’s snowmaggedon,” said Kulieke, 71, whose mountain cabin was buried under at least 4 feet of powder Monday amid record-breaking snowfall in the Sierra Nevada. “It’s just beyond belief how much snow there is.”
Officials at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab at Donner Pass said the area’s snowfall totals have surpassed the previous December record of 179 inches set in 1970. By Tuesday morning, the lab had received a whopping 202.1 inches of snow, making it the third-snowiest month on record.
The snow comes as a much-needed surprise for the bone-dry West, where only months ago, officials put residents under a state of drought emergency amid increasingly dry conditions. During the long, hot summer, rivers and reservoirs dried up, and once-green fields sat fallow and turned to dust.
But December roared in
