The latest California storm did not hold a lot of moisture at lower elevations for Central California but it did coat the Sierra with enough snow to allow many of the popular ski resorts to open for the season.
The winter storm – now they have names like Hurricanes – called Dion slid down the Sierra overnight into Saturday dumping 12-15 inches of snow in the Tahoe area Saturday. Skiers ra are celebrating the opening of the season in time for the Holidays.
Dion is doing lot more damage now heading East.
Northstar says they got 23 inches over the last 48 hrs,30 inches at Heavenly Valley and Kirkwood says they got 36 inches as of Saturday.
Bear Mountain is open with 12 inches of snow depth. Further south Bear Valley expects to open by 12/21 with a dozen other resorts not yet open.
Above Fresno China Peak reports 14 inches as of 12/8 with the resort now open for business this weekend. Badger Pass is not yet open but is expecting to open 12/13 their website says.
Across the Sierra at Mammoth they are open with 12-16” of new snow.Their cross country trails opened this weekend.
Unfortunately the forecast looks dry for California for the next week with some hope for a storm after that – perhaps around December 20. SLO saw 0.39 inches while Fresno received 0.15. Hanford recorded 0.12 inches on 12/7.