Winter Wonderland

A remarkable March for Lake Tahoe:

An unending series of March snowstorms pasted the Sierra in white, with one Lake Tahoe ski resort reporting more snowfall than during any other month over the last 35 years.

At Alpine Meadows, the resort received more than 16 feet of snow at its base lodge since March 1. Midway up the mountain, more than 22 feet fell, resort representatives said Wednesday.

That's a record. It surpasses the previous high of 15.6 feet that fell at Alpine during the "Miracle March" of 1991.

... Alpine Meadows received the most snowfall for a single month since resort operators started keeping records in 1970.

Other areas have seen much the same thing. At Tahoe City, nearly 6.8 feet of snow has fallen since March 1, making the month the fourth snowiest March since 1931. And there are still two days of the month left, with more snow likely Friday.

"There's been a huge increase. It's dramatically improved the snowpack," said Gary Barbato, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Reno.

The change was particularly remarkable in some lower elevations of the Sierra, Barbato said. At Fallen Leaf Lake near South Lake Tahoe, for example, the snowpack went from 39 percent of average on March 1 to 166 percent on Wednesday, Barbato said.