Heavy Snow — Upper San Joaquin River, California

2025-02-13 to 2025-02-14 · Upper San Joaquin River, California

Event narrative

The Kaiser Point SNOTEL (9131 feet) picked up an estimated 24 inches of new snowfall.

The Devil's Postpile SNOTEL (8004 feet) picked up an estimated 37 inches of new snowfall.

The Green Mountain SNOTEL (7900 feet) picked up an estimated 31 inches of new snowfall.

The Chilkoot Meadow SNOTEL (7150 feet) picked up an estimated 22 inches of new snowfall.

The Graveyard Meadow SNOTEL (6897 feet) picked up an estimated 21 inches of new snowfall.

Wider weather episode

A large upper low pressure system and associated trough moved across California on February 13 bringing widespread moderate to heavy precipitation to the area along with damaging wind gusts. Several reports of nuisance flooding were reported on February 13. There were also several reports of trees and power lines knocked down by strong wind gusts as several station reported gusts above 60 mph and a few stations had gusts near 90 mph. Much of the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada picked up between 4 and 6 inches of liquid precipitation while the Sierra Foothills generally had 2.5 to 5 inches of rainfall. The Kern River Valley generally picked up between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rainfall while much of the Tehachapi Mountains and the San Joaquin Valley and West Side Hills from Fresno County northward picked up between 1 and 2 inches. South of Fresno County, the valley and West Side Hills picked up between a half inch and an inch of rain. Between a quarter and a half inch of rainfall over much of the Kern County Deserts. The snow level was around 7000 feet for much of the event, but lowered to around 5500 feet during the morning of February 14 following the passage of the main cold front. Several SNOTELs in the Sierra Nevada picked up an estimated 2 to 3 feet of new snowfall.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1227291. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.