Apologies to my grandmother for using nuclear in a positive fashion. She has fought against nukes for decades. So I imagine she does not really enjoy seeing nuclear as a metaphor for something very desirable - feet and feet of snow.
I use the phrase to describe the special speed and volume of snowfall that can occur in the Lake Tahoe basin. It can snow here faster than anyplace I have ever been. Sometimes when you are outdoors in a full force storm, visibility is mere feet and the snow is accumulating at multiple inches an hour. I know that may be small solace for folks on the east coast getting blasted by yet another huge winter storm as I write. But, it has been my experience that tahoe can fill it up quicker than anywhere.
For example, last weekend brought 4-8+ feet of snow on the crest of the sierras. Yes feet. Yesterday Mu and i went to Kirkwood, which has received 8 feet of snow over the last 5 or so days. So much snow that it has been a huge endeavor to dig out the resort and make sure that it is safe enough for people to ski. The second job is particularly important with this kind of storm and the elevated avalanche danger that is a by-product of volume and high moisture ratios for the snow in the Tahoe area.
Tahoe gets so much snow because it is close to the biggest reservoir of moisture in the world, the Pacific Ocean. It is 200 miles on the highway from San Francisco and as the crow flies probably more like 120 miles to the ocean.
This last set of storms had a plume of moisture extending from Hawaii all the way to Tahoe. Wave after wave of moisture came ashore and crashed into the large mountains, dumping the saturated moisture. The temperatures are also generally higher than other mountain resorts, which is part of what makes it attractive for my wife and also tends to result in heavier snow compared to Colorado or Utah. Heavier snow is not as great for skiing but because of the snow volume and frequency, you usually get a ton of powder days.
At least that is the plan. Tahoe has been in a drought, but the big storm from last weekend has got most resorts in the basin approaching 100%. Now we just need the snow to keep coming.
Stepping back, it has been a bit quiet on the blog front from us, which is really an inevitable outcome of our stepping off the travel merry go round for a spell. As I noted in my previous post, we are going to be in Tahoe for the next 2 months. Our living situation is very cush relative to our travel lifestyle. We are ensconced in the old ski house that we got for several years with friends from the Bay and Sacramento. This year, we are simply living in the house instead of commuting up and back to the Bay every weekend. Many Sundays i would tell Mu as we drove out of tahoe how much I wish we lived here, and now we do for the next months. On balance, the situation is pretty similar to the one we had in Breckenridge last ski season, but instead of a condo we are in a 4 bedroom house.
On the blogging front, these times we have set up in a ski destination become much harder to write. We aren't moving around so there are not many new things to share. My days are pretty similar, with a healthy chunk of time spent on the mountain getting in turns. Lately, that leaves a bunch of time to enjoy the Olympics.
Furthermore, a big aim of this blog is write about other cultures, and show what we are seeing via photos. Right now, the culture is the same as most of our friends and family. Being in our dominant culture does not allow for the same frequency of intercultural exchanges, or misadventures.
Looking forward, we will hope for more nuclear meteorological events in the coming days. Sorry Nana, but it is true. As interesting things happen, we will write about them too.
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