Sunday's storm sets new snowfall record in Minden

Workers were already working in Minden to dig out from 7 inches of snow that fell before 6 a.m. Sunday.

If the storm had stopped there, it would have been a fair producer, but it didn’t.

Over the next 24 hours, R-C weather watcher Stan Kapler reported another 18 inches fell in the Douglas County seat, setting a new record for the date and for the first dozen days of February.

“It just kept coming down,” Kapler said.

Because the National Weather Service considers a day starts at 6 a.m., the total of 25 inches of snow that fell in Minden on Sunday was divided between Feb. 4 and 5.

Minden wasn’t the only spot to see 18 inches of snow on Sunday. Fredericksburg resident Jeff Garvin and a trained weather spotter in Pleasantview both reported a foot and a half fell in their neighborhoods.

Despite that, an atmospheric river that inundated Southern California sent a narrow plume of moisture due north into Carson Valley leaving more snow in Minden than the 20 inches Heavenly Ski Resort reported over the same period of time.

Natural Resource Conservation Service telemetry at Heavenly Valley showed a slight increase in snow water equivalent from the storm, going from 8.1 inches on Feb. 1 to 10 inches on Wednesday. That’s less than a third of last year’s Feb. 7 record of 34.8 inches.

Blue Lakes showed a much sharper increase from the storm from 9.5 inches of water locked in snowpack to 14.6 inches today. That’s 78 percent of average of average for the date, but well short of the last year’s record of 45.8 inches on Feb. 7, according to records.

Ebbetts Pass at the top of the Carson River’s East Fork is at 67 percent, with 16.1 inches today. That’s up from 11.1 inches on Feb. 1.