The dynamics of California weather

When Fresno is hot, it's scorching hot; when Fresno is cold, it's freezing cold

By SYLAS WRIGHT

California lures visitors from across the globe with attractive scenery and pleasant weather. But the scenery is not always attractive, and the weather is often far from pleasant.

“California’s weather is super dynamic,” said Mark McLaughlin, a weather historian in the Lake Tahoe area. “That’s why I moved out here.”

So dynamic is the weather in this diverse state, it ranks among the most extreme in the country, from blazing heat to bitter cold, torrential precipitation to radical dryness.

McLaughlin moved from Philadelphia to the Tahoe area 25 years ago. The lure: snow.

“Low pressure gets me high,” he said jokingly in meteorological jargon—as low pressure simply means possible stormy weather. “I was a weather freak back there, too, but they don’t get near the amounts of snow as we do out here.”

McLaughlin is right. In fact, several snowfall records have been set in the northern Sierra Nevada.

McLaughlin, who wrote “Sierra Stories: Tales of Tahoe, Volumes 1 & 2” and is writing another book titled “Snowbound: Legendary Winters,” created a Web site listing some extreme totals.

Tamarack, located south of Tahoe, broke the U.S. snowfall record for one month when 390 inches (32.5 feet) fell in January of 1911. The record for snow depth was set at Tamarack the same year, when a measurement of 454 inches—37.8 feet—was recorded in March.

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company collected snowfall data from 1878 to 1945 and from 1952 to 1957. The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, located near Donner Summit at 6,950 feet in elevation, has the archive figures.

At Donner Summit—where surviving members of the Donner Party crossed in the spring of 1847—a U.S. record was set in 1880 when 298 inches (24.8 feet) of snow fell in April.

The Sierra Nevada snowfall record for a season is 884 inches (73.7 feet), set in the winter of 1906-07 at Tamarack. Mount Baker Ski Resort in Washington broke the U.S. and world record with 1,140 inches of snow (95 feet) in 1998.

The second-heaviest snowstorm total in the U.S. during a 24-hour period is 67 inches (5.6 feet) and was set on January 4-5, 1982 at Echo Summit. The North American record is held by Silver Lake, Colo., which received 76 inches (6.3 feet) in 24 hours in April of 1921.

Mount Shasta Ski Bowl, located near the picturesque 14,162-foot volcano in the Cascade Mountains of Northern California, holds the U.S. single storm snowfall record with 189 inches (15.75 feet). That storm dumped snow from Feb. 13 to 19, 1959.

There is more annual precipitation in Northern California because of the higher latitude, McLaughlin said, but major storms often hit the central and southern portions of the state during winter months.

In fact, according to the Western Regional Climate Center, a place called Hoegees in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles, was pummeled with 26.12 inches of rain in 24 hours in January 1943—a California record.

In the heart of the Golden State is Fresno, which has an average seasonal rainfall of just 10.83 inches.

The meager precipitation in Fresno can be attributed to the rain shadow effect, which means the clouds traveling inland are relatively dry because they have already lost moisture in the coastal mountains.

But in the Sierra Nevada, just east of Fresno, high elevation forces the moisture from the clouds again.

Lodgepole, located in Sequoia National Park at 6,735 feet, averages 45.92 inches of rain and 265.5 inches of snow.

Just north of Lodgepole, near Huntington Lake, is Sierra Summit Ski Resort, which, thanks to a pair of powerful October storms, followed by several smaller ones, has a four-and-a-half-foot base of snow at the top of the 8,700-foot summit. The resort opened Nov. 6—the earliest date ever.

Although all the snowfall records were set in the northern Sierra, there have been huge winters in the central Sierra as well.

Bob Waltz, a retired technical specialist for the power company Southern California Edison, has seen a few winters, and powerful snowstorms. With SCE dams and powerhouses scattered throughout the mountains, he has worked all over the Sierra in all types of conditions, year-round.

Waltz remembers the stormy winter of 1969 when Fresno received 19.14 inches of rain, causing cabins at Huntington Lake to collapse under 13 feet of snow.

“People didn’t know to take the snow off the roof first,” Waltz said of the homeowners who shoveled from the side in order to reach the door. Without the support of the surrounding snow, the roofs could not withstand the weight and caved in. “Quite a few had damage. And several big trees fell on cabins.”

But on the opposite end of the weather spectrum, certain places in the state are scorchingly hot and extremely dry.

Fresno is one of those places, often reaching 100 degrees or more in the summer months, with little or no precipitation. On July 8, 1905 it reached 115 degrees—the hottest temperature ever recorded in Fresno.

But there’s a place in California that makes Fresno’s record heat seem mild and its 10.83 inches of annual rainfall seem abundant.

That place is Death Valley National Park, where the average high temperature in July is 115 degrees, and the annual precipitation is 1.92 inches.

No rain was recorded at all in Death Valley in 1929.

On July 10, 1913 Death Valley set a world record for the highest temperature, with a blazing 134 degrees—in the shade. The record stood until 1922, when a 136-degree reading was recorded in Azizia, Lybia. That record stands.

Vicki Wolfe, a park ranger in Death Valley for the past 12 years, is familiar with the heat. Wolfe ventured out once when the temperature reached 129 degrees. She described the experience.

“I had shorts on and when the backs of my legs were facing the sun, it felt like my legs were backed up too close to a fire,” Wolfe said.

In 1996, there were 40 days in Death Valley in which the temperature soared to 120 degrees or more.

That same year a temperature of 110 degrees was recorded on 103 days, while the 100-degree mark was eclipsed on 134 days. Wolfe said for the most part, those days are spent indoors.

“It feels like sitting in your car with the windows up and the heater on in the middle of the summer,” Wolfe said about being outdoors on scorching summer days. “A warm breeze feels like a huge blow-dryer being blown on you.”

That’s not pleasant weather.

Hot, cold, wet, dry—California has it all. The state is unique in many ways, and its climate is no exception.

It’s like McLaughlin said, “California’s weather is super dynamic.”