The snowpack in the Sierra was at dangerously low levels after recent weeks of dry weather but the state Department of Water Resources reported on Christmas Eve that the snowpack was between 114% and 137% of normal across the range with more snow expected. There’s been at least 119 inches recorded so far this month, according to The Mercury News, with more expected over the next 72 hours. “The worst part of the storm is here so expect long delays,” the California Highway Patrol in Truckee tweeted Saturday afternoon about traveling on Interstate 80.Īt Donner Pass in the Sierra, which is along the closed interstate, officials with the University of California, Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory wondered on Twitter if the recent snowfall could break the snowiest December record of 179 inches set in 1970.

Other local totals: 0.70 inches in Soquel, 0.43 inches in Las Selva Beach and 0.29 inches at Natural Bridges. Last year at this time, Happy Valley’s rainfall total was 4.36 inches, according to a Sentinel weather watcher. Happy Valley posted 1.73 inches Saturday for a season total of 20.21 inches. Interstate 80 connecting Reno, Nevada, to Sacramento over the Sierra was closed in both directions due to poor visibility from the Nevada-California state line to Colfax.Ĭloser to home, Scotts Valley recorded the most rain in a polling of Sentinel weather watchers with 1.82 inches to reach 23.95 inches of rain since Oct.

A 70-mile stretch of interstate over the Sierra Nevada was closed Saturday when the storm that dropped nearly 2 feet of snow on some ski resorts around Lake Tahoe overnight got a second wind.

Rainfall totals bay area