Rumors (and at least one Yosemite blogger) are saying that the Tioga Road is open from the east to the top. Not true.

As of Tuesday May 11th, 2010 at noon, the lower gate is still closed. In addition, Mono County crews are starting to plow into the park today, Wednesday May 12th. There are less than 10 miles of snow-covered road left to clear since the NPS crews have reached pothole dome. Once clear, the road doesn’t open immediately due to additional maintenance and avalanche danger.

Tuesday May 11, 2010 at noon. Contrary to rumors triggered by a blogger with incorrect information, the lower gate is still closed. Photo by Greg Reis.

WEATHER
Our sunny and warm weekends have been interspersed with cold, windy, and showery weekdays—but the outlook is for more sun and less snow. April was the third-wettest since 1950 for Lee Vining/Mono Lake (after 1982 and 2006), with 334% of average April precipitation.

TRANSPORTATION
The Lee Vining Airport will be closed from Tuesday until mid-July for re-paving. The Bodie Road (Hwy 270) is open to within 1.5 miles of the State Historic Park—lots of folks are walking the last 1.5 miles to enjoy (more…)

Whether you fly fish or prefer to spin cast, take out your float tube or stand on the shore, look for stream riffles or the glassiest lakes, fishing season in the Eastern Sierra has something for everyone. The 2010 fishing season opens this Saturday, April 24 … do you have everything you need?

Licenses
Anyone age 16 or older must have a valid fishing license. New this year: no longer do (more…)

Highway 120, Tioga Road, is closed for the winter about four miles from Highway 395, near the bottom of the 3,000-foot grade between Lee Vining and Tioga Pass. By early May the road is usually opened to the top from the east, about 12 miles from Highway 395 (check here for the change in mileage to know when it opens), allowing skiers easy access to spring skiing in the snow-covered high country. The road within Yosemite National Park remains closed through most of May.

Last night at the Mono Basin Regional Planning Advisory Committee meeting (always a great source of up-to-date info usually the second Wednesday of each month), Mark Logan, the Caltrans Lee Vining Road Maintenance Supervisor, said (more…)

At this point, with the National Park Service beginning plowing only yesterday, there is no way anyone can know what the opening date will be this spring. But we are getting lots of calls and emails, so we figured it was worth posting what we do know.

The average opening date is at the end of May, and this April’s snowpack water content is slightly above average at 112% at Tioga Pass, 96% in Dana Meadows, 102% in Tuolumne Meadows, 92% at Tenaya Lake, and 134% at Gin Flat. Plowing typically begins (more…)

In mid-March the sun began melting the snow in the Mono Basin very quickly, and now on the fifth day of spring, many south-facing slopes are bare, and below 7,000 feet the remaining snow is retreating quickly into the shade. Above 7,000 feet deep snow (more…)

Mono Lake
On April 1st, 2009 (the beginning of this Runoff Year), Mono Lake was at an elevation of 6382.5 feet. It dropped about a foot by the end of the calendar year, and in January and February it rose half a foot, for a net loss of 0.6 feet since last April 1st. The half-foot rise in January and February is the largest 2-month wintertime rise since a 0.6 foot rise in January and February 2006. Mono Lake usually rises 0.1 foot in March–if it does that this month, we should be looking at an April 1st level of about 6382.0 feet. Click here for more on Mono Lake’s levels.

Lee Vining Precipitation
Here in Lee Vining, from October through February we’ve received 11.72 inches of precipitation, which is 108% (more…)

We are all getting bulked up on the white stuff. Yesterday I spent six hours shoveling between my roof and the berm left by the snow plow. It’s a pleasure to see this much snow, and it’s the first time in a while that this much has fallen around Mono Lake. We measured 33.2″ from Monday to Friday this week at our weather station here in Lee Vining. Thursday’s storm (1-21-2010)  set all-time low barometric pressure records for the San Joaquin Valley, to Reno, to Las Vegas. I don’t know if there’s an official barometer for Lee Vining, but the pressure dropped to just above 983 millibars/29.04 inches on one local weather station, the the lowest I’ve ever seen it.

A view to the north from the south-bound lanes of Highway 395, through the middle of Lee Vining.

Greg Reis stands knee-deep in fresh snow near the Mono Lake Committee's weather station. Photo by Elin Ljung.

After a one-day break in the storms—a day of just a few flurries and a night of wind-drifting snow—the snowfall has returned and it means business!

It started accumulating before 9:00 am this morning, and by 1:00 pm we had 3 inches of new snow and by 2:00 pm we had 4 more inches!!! These are amazing hourly rates and we need to keep a close eye on our weather instruments to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed. Our internet rain gauge is measuring water content up to 0.15 inches per hour. There is a delay because a heater has to melt the snow, and we have to break through any snow bridges that form over the heated gauge.

Highway 395 closed just after 1:30 pm between Mammoth and Bridgeport—the plows just weren’t able to keep up—and our staff got home to Mono City (7 miles north of our office in Lee Vining) just in time. We are expecting high winds this afternoon and evening to bring blizzard conditions.

The highway will probably be closed overnight according to the Mono County Office of Emergency Services.

Lee Vining-ites woke from last night’s clear starry skies to slow encroaching snow this morning. The snow started coming down around 9:00 am, and now at 10:30, it’s definitely sticking and starting to accumulate. I went out and shot a couple of photos … we’ll see if this storm is worth doing before-and-after shots!

If you are traveling in the area please, please drive carefully. We’ve had two bad accidents close to town in the last week … and that was before the snow even started to fall. As I took these photos out in the street just now people were flying by way too fast—I try to remind myself that we carry our most precious cargo, the people we love and care about, in our cars.

10:30 am on Monday, January 18---Highway 395 looking north from the Mono Lake Committee.