South Lake Tahoe, CA…The new year at Tahoe South is off to a monumental start with 3-4 feet of snow and counting at area ski resorts with 1-2 more feet expected overnight. Storm totals from the past three days are expected to exceed six feet (http://tahoesouth.com/). A winter storm warning remains in effect until 4 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 5.

“We’re popping bubbly to celebrate the new year’s champagne powder conditions,” said Carol Chaplin, president and CEO of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority. “The storms have continued to deliver significant snowfall which is great for winter enthusiasts’ long range planning and for favorable conditions throughout April.”

The Sierra snowpack measurement which tracks California’s water content was taken Jan. 3 near Echo Summit in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Frank Gehrke, chief of the Snow Surveys Program for the California Department of Water Resources, anticipates the measurement to be at 100 percent of average once the storms move through.

The U.S. Drought Monitor report released Dec. 27 indicated that the Northern Sierra is out of the extreme/severe drought – the results of this storm should help significantly. (The U.S. Drought Monitor is produced through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) http://droughtmonitor.

During snowfall, a fleet of city and state snow removal vehicles work around the Lake Tahoe Basin to keep roads clear and safe for travel. Check Caltrans www.dot.ca.gov and Nevada Department of Transportation http://nvroads.com for current road conditions, including temporary closures. Currently Wednesday evening, Kingsbury Grade (SR 207) and Mount Rose Highway (SR 431) are temporarily closed but Spooner Summit (Highway 50 W), Echo Summit (Highway 50 East) and Luther Pass (SR 89) are open.