According to the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, this snowstorm surpassed December 1970 as the snowiest December ever recorded by the institute Monday afternoon — and as of Tuesday, is nearing the mark for snowiest month ever recorded since 1970 — with more than 202 inches falling this month. The record was 238 inches in the month of January 2017.

Most major throughways in and out of Tahoe continue to be closed indefinitely because of downed trees, roads narrowed by snow, sleet and ice and a litany of other factors. And for the roads that are currently open, chains or snow tires are mandatory.

The National Weather Service’s Reno office said on Twitter that “one last storm” is set to pound Tahoe from Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. The temperature is also expected to descend to a frigid 10 degrees Wednesday night.

“Very cold air moving in, a frigid NYE and possibly another strong winter storm next week,” the office tweeted Tuesday morning. There is also a chance of snow starting next Monday, according to the National Weather Service’s Tahoe forecast.

In the meantime, these photos show the stunning snowfall currently blanketing the Lake Tahoe area. (see source for photos- https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/Pictures-Lake-Tahoe-set-record-snowiest-month-16734194.php)

Joshua Bote is an assistant news editor for SFGATE. He grew up in the Los Angeles area, went to UC Berkeley and has previously worked as a reporter at USA Today and a music writer at NPR. Email: joshua.bote@sfgate.com

Source: https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/Pictures-Lake-Tahoe-set-record-snowiest-month-16734194.php

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Better weather has slowed the growth of the huge California wildfire near Lake Tahoe resort communities, authorities said Friday.

The Caldor Fire remained only a few miles from the city of South Lake Tahoe, which was emptied of 22,000 residents days ago, along with casinos and shops across the state line in Nevada, but no significant fire activity occurred since Thursday , officials said.

Tim Ernst, an operations section chief, said fire officials were cautiously optimistic thanks to “a lot of hard work” by firefighters over the past two weeks.

The nearly 333-square-mile (862-square-kilometer) fire was not making any significant advances and was not challenging containment lines in long sections of its perimeter, but Ernst said “the risk is still out there” with some areas that remained hot.

Residents on western and northern sides of the fires were allowed back home by Friday afternoon, but fire officials said they don’t have a specific timeline for repopulating South Lake Tahoe. Utility companies have to make sure power is restored, fire crews will have to remove hazardous trees and other threats to power lines, and roadways have to be cleared of debris.

Jake Cagle, another operations section chief, said fire and law enforcement officials are evaluating the issue in meetings several times a day to determine when to lift evacuation orders.

“It’s all based on fire behavior. For now, things are looking good. On that contingent, we’re getting close,” he said.

The fire had been driven northeast on a course leading to South Lake Tahoe for days by southwestern winds, but that pattern ended this week. Calmer winds and increased humidity Thursday and Friday helped crews increase containment of the blaze to 29%.

“Very positive trends with regards to weather,” said Dean Gould, a U.S. Forest Service administrator. “That’s huge for us. Let’s take full advantage of it while we have this window.”

With the fire growing at the smallest rate in two weeks, he said, “Things are clearly heading in the right direction for us.”

Amid the positive outlook, incident meteorologist Jim Dudley warned that the air mass in the Sierra Nevada drains downslope every night and then sloshes upslope during the day and that the region’s terrain of ridges and deep canyons can create winds that go in “squirrely directions.”

“Just because we don’t have red flag wind conditions across the fire, the wind threat is still there and it’s all localized,” he warned.

The fire — which began Aug. 14, was named after the road where it started and raged through densely forested, craggy areas — was still considered a threat to more than 30,000 homes, businesses and other buildings ranging from cabins to ski resorts.

Residents who were forced to flee South Lake Tahoe earlier this week remained evacuated along with people across the state line in Douglas County, Nevada.

The resort area can easily accommodate 100,000 people on a busy weekend but was eerily empty just before the Labor Day weekend.

The wildfire dealt a major blow to an economy that heavily depends on tourism and was starting to rebound this summer from pandemic shutdowns.

“It’s a big hit for our local businesses and the workers who rely on a steady income to pay rent and put food on their table,” said Devin Middlebrook, mayor pro-tem of South Lake Tahoe.

He said the shutdown will also hurt the city, as it gets most of its revenue to pay for police and fire services, as well as road maintenance, from hotel taxes and sales taxes.

Friday’s forecast called for lighter winds but also extremely dry daytime weather, with a warming trend through the weekend as high pressure builds over the West, fire officials said.

More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes that have destroyed at least 1,500 homes. One blaze, the Dixie Fire, was about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Caldor Fire. It is the second-largest wildfire in state history at about 1,350 square miles (3,496 square kilometers) and is 55% contained.

California has experienced increasingly larger and deadlier wildfires in recent years as climate change has made the West much warmer and drier over the past 30 years. Scientists have said weather will continue to be more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable. No deaths have been reported so far this fire season.

———

Nguyen reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writer John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/fire-officials-optimistic-fight-lake-tahoe-fire-79816353

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.

“It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Additional strike teams arrived just after dark and many of the new firefighters were immediately dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area about 10 miles from South Lake Tahoe, said fire spokesman Dominic Polito.

“We’re flooding the area with resources,” he said. “Wherever there are structures, there are firefighters on the ground.”

Ken Breslin was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic less than a mile from his home in the city of 22,000, with only a quarter-tank of gas in his Ford Escape. His son begged him to leave Sunday night, but he shrugged him off, certain that if an evacuation order came, it would be later in the week.

“Before, it was, ‘No worries … it’s not going to crest. It’s not gonna come down the hill. There’s 3,500 firefighters, all those bulldozers and all the air support,’” he said. “Until this morning, I didn’t think there was a chance it could come into this area. Now, it’s very real.”

As flames churned toward South Lake Tahoe, residents just over the state line in Douglas County, Nevada were under evacuation warnings.

Monday’s fresh evacuation orders, unheard of in the city, came a day after communities several miles south of the lake were abruptly ordered to leave as the fire raged nearby. South Lake Tahoe’s main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, proactively evacuated dozens of patients, and the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office transferred inmates to a neighboring jail.

“There is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before. The critical thing for the public to know is evacuate early,” said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “For the rest of you in California: Every acre can and will burn someday in this state.”

The threat of fire is so widespread that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.

“We do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety,” Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien said.

Overnight, the already massive Caldor Fire grew 7 miles in direction in one area northeast of Highway 50 and more than 8 miles in another, Cal Fire officials said.

More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes, including crews from Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of California’s Office of Emergency Services. About 250 active-duty soldiers were being trained in Washington state to help with the arduous work of clearing forest debris by hand.

Crews from Louisiana, however, had to return to that state because of Hurricane Ida, “another major catastrophic event taking place in the country and is a pull on resources throughout the United States,” he said.

Porter said that only twice in California history have blazes burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, both this month, with the Caldor and Dixie fires. The Dixie, the second-largest wildfire in state history at 1,205 square miles about 65 miles north of the Lake Tahoe-area blaze, prompted new evacuation orders and warnings Monday.

The Lake Tahoe area in the Sierra Nevada mountains is usually a year-round recreational paradise offering beaches, water sports, hiking, ski resorts and golfing. South Lake Tahoe, at the lake’s southern end, bustles with outdoor activities, and with casinos available in bordering Stateline, Nevada.

On weekends, the city’s population can easily triple and on holiday weekends, like the upcoming Labor Day weekend, up to 100,000 people will visit for fun and sun. But South Lake Tahoe City Mayor Tamara Wallace said they’ve been telling people for days to stay away because of poor air from wildfires.

She said she thought the Caldor Fire would stay farther away. Fires in the past did not spread so rapidly near the tourist city.

“It’s just yet another example of how wildfires have changed over the years,” she said as she gathered treasures passed from her deceased parent and her husband’s while they prepared to leave.

The last two wildfires that ripped through populated areas near Tahoe were the Angora Fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in 2007 and the Gondola Fire in 2002 that ignited near a chairlift at Heavenly Mountain Resort.

Since then, the dead trees have accumulated and the region has coped with serious droughts, Wallace said. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, scientists say.

Wallace said traffic was crawling Monday, but praised the evacuation as orderly because residents heeded officials’ orders. Authorities have also been more aggressive in recent years, issuing warnings and orders sooner so people have more time to flee.

Not everyone agreed as fierce winds kicked up dust and debris and drivers sat in gridlock. The California Highway Patrol added “quite a bit of additional personnel” to help guide a chaotic evacuation from South Lake Tahoe, as huge traffic jams slowed the evacuation of vehicles, CHP Assistant Commissioner Ryan Okashima said. Congestion had eased by Monday afternoon.

South Lake Tahoe resident John Larson said the evacuation probably went as smoothly as possible, considering how swiftly flames moved into the area.

“The fuel went so fast and it climbed the ridge so quick,” Larson said of the fire after settling into an evacuation center at a park in Carson City, Nevada. Red Cross volunteers set up the facility with 50 cots after another evacuation center in nearby Gardnerville reached capacity.

The fire destroyed multiple homes Sunday along Highway 50, one of the main routes to the lake’s south end. It also roared through the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, demolishing some buildings but leaving the main buildings at the base intact. Crews used snow-making machines to douse the ground.

Cabins burned near the unincorporated community of Echo Lake, where Tom Fashinell has operated Echo Chalet with his wife since 1984. The summer-only resort offers cabin rentals, but was ordered to close early for the season by the U.S. Forest Service due to ongoing wildfires.

Fashinell said he was glued to the local TV news. “We’re watching to see whether the building survives,” he said.

The Caldor Fire has scorched nearly 292 square miles since breaking out Aug. 14. After the weekend’s fierce burning, containment dropped from 19 percent to 15 percent. More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 20,000 more were threatened. Gov. Steve Sisolak on Monday declared a state of emergency in Nevada, citing “the anticipation” that the wildfire in the Lake Tahoe area in California would burn across the state line into the Silver State.

The National Weather Service warned of dangerous fire conditions and winds through Wednesday.

Diane Kinney, who has lived in the city since the 1970s, said this is the first time her neighborhood has been ordered to evacuate. She and her husband were packing up keepsakes, jewelry and insurance papers shortly after noon. They had to leave their 1964 Chevelle, but she hopes it stays safe.

“Everybody wants to live in Lake Tahoe. There are definitely advantages of being in the mountains, being with these beautiful pine trees,” she said. “But we definitely have to get out now.”

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/caldor-fire-sweeps-toward-lake-tahoe-after-mass-evacuation-n1278106

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