Suspense is building across the West Coast to see what El Niño has in store for Tahoe this winter. According to at least one metric, this El Niño is already the strongest one of record since reliable data collection began in 1950. Officials are warning of floods and mudslides in Southern California, while Tahoe Sierra resort operators and snow-starved skiers and riders are dreaming of endless powder days. Odds are good that we’ll get both.
Editor’s Note: Read the first three parts at TheTahoeWeekly.com
Soda Springs Lodge near Donner Pass, circa April 1983. | Courtesy Mark McLaughlin
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“In 1983, scientists tallied 671 inches – nearly 60 feet – of snowfall at Donner Pass, the 6th greatest total since 1879.”
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The winter of 1983 was also influenced by a very strong El Niño event. The season started early and gangbuster storms hit month after month. During March, Southern Pacific Railroad’s Norden Station at 7,000 feet near Donner Pass picked up another 13 feet of snow. The snow depth there was 18 feet on March 28. Everyone had had enough, but the Storm King was far from done.
During the winter of 1983, incessant storms piled snow on Blyth Arena, famed for its role in the legendary 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley. Its roof was designed with an active system to make the roof shed snow, but changes to the design over time reduced its shedding ability.
Snow accumulations finally grew so great that shortly after noon on March 29, 1983, Blyth Arena collapsed with a loud boom and billowing cloud of dust. There were no casualties because the facility’s manager Pete Bansen had closed the rink for the day after he observed the roof showing structural strain. His alert action most likely prevented a tragedy as a Tiny Tot program was scheduled that morning followed by public skating.
Blyth Arena may be gone, but memories from the 1960 Olympics, including American figure skater Carol Heiss’ gold medal performance and the U.S. hockey team’s inspirational victory over the Russians and Czechs, are still with us.
The first half of April was dry and sunny, which gave mountain residents an opportunity to start shoveling out. After two full weeks of nice weather Tahoe-Truckee locals were starting to gain hope that the brutal winter had run its course.
Their optimism faded quickly on April 18 when an active storm track again took aim at the region. For the next 13 days snow and rain pelted the Tahoe Sierra.
New snow ranged from 24 inches at 5,000 feet to more than 50 inches above 7,000 feet. Echo Summit measured 86.5 inches of new accumulation in the second half of the month. As May approached, snow depths at Norden exceeded 17 feet; some of the deepest late snow since World War II. Sugar Bowl general manager Don Schwartz proclaimed the snowfall of ’83 to be the greatest ever. Schwartz said, “This is an all-time record. Right now you can walk off our porch onto 25 feet of snow.”
The Storm King finally gave up the fight in May and the hyperactive winter of 1983 succumbed to an approaching summer. By late May, four weeks of dry weather and warm temperatures had convinced locals that any major impacts from the preceding harsh winter were over.
The region had avoided potentially catastrophic spring floods on the Truckee and Carson rivers and the bright, sunny skies beckoned many into early summer activities after many months of cabin fever. But danger was lurking in the sodden, unstable soils near Slide Mountain, Nev., northwest of Carson City.
On May 30, a landslide containing 1.4 million cubic yards of rock material plummeted into Upper Price Lake on the slopes above Washoe Lake. The force of the slide displaced 20 acre-feet of water and slush from the small mountain lake and unleashed a torrent of mud, rock and debris into the canyon below.
Similar to a powder avalanche, the incredibly fast-moving slurry of rock and mud seemed to have a “super-elevated surface” as it negotiated curves in the channel. When the debris collided with large conifer trees, the impact snapped them like twigs.
The cataclysmic event transported thousands of tons of rock and debris down Ophir Creek and generated a flash flood into the small community below that destroyed homes, injured several residents and killed one man.
The death of 36-year-old Joe Valenzuela was a tragic loss. He was a Gardnerville pastor in the Carson Valley and the father of six children. When news of the disaster spread, there was a tremendous outpouring of support from the community for the Valenzuela family.
On May 3, snow water content in the Sierra exceeded 230 percent of normal, and the ensuing runoff resulted in approximately four times the average volume. Snow was gone from Blue Canyon by May 24 and at Norden by June 22.
Fortunately, cool temperatures in June and an effectively managed reservoir storage system avoided uncontrolled releases and damaging downstream flooding, thus sparing lowland Californians from what could have been the worst flood since 1862.
The unrelenting storms broke many weather and stream flow records in the Golden State. New rainfall benchmarks were established at 512 locations statewide. An average of 88.49 inches of precipitation fell in the Northern Sierra, the most recorded since 1922 when aggregate measurements were first established for the region.
The 1983 water year was the wettest of record in California and unparalleled in its destructive impact on the state. Severe weather that winter killed 36 people, injured 481 and caused $1.2 billion in economic losses in the Golden State. It still ranks among the worst in California history. An estimated 8,382 homes were damaged and destroyed. Forty-six of the state’s 58 counties were declared national disaster areas.
In 1983, scientists tallied 671 inches – nearly 60 feet – of snowfall at Donner Pass, the 6th greatest total since 1879. Precipitation at the Central Sierra Snow Lab was 94 inches, which ranks third all-time there. Overall, the El Niño-influenced winter of 1983 still ranks as the wettest winter for the Northern Sierra overall.
Lessons learned from the 1983 ENSO event were used to lessen the impact of the very strong El Niño in 1997-98, including enhanced coordination of reservoir releases.
Excerpted from “Snowbound: Legendary Winters of the Tahoe Sierra” set for publication February 2016.
Hear Mark McLaughlin’s radio interview on Capital Public Radio | http://bit.ly/1QqRSEX
Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at thestormking.com. You may reach him at mark@thestormking.com. Check out his blog at tahoenuggets.com or read more at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
