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Mother Nature Makes Herself Felt
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, 01/28/08

I left Florida very early yesterday morning in a driving rainstorm, the worst Florida weather on the entire 4-day trip. On the way to Dallas-Fort Worth, some unlucky guy had some heart palpitations, so we diverted to Houston to get him off and into an ambulance. Thankfully he was still conscious and moving under his own power when he left the plane.

Apparently bad weather all around the country was creating a ripple effect at DFW, because we took off almost 2 hours late. We found ourselves in the teeth of another brewing snow storm in the Sierra, although it was not yet as bad as our January 4th return flight.

It was another nail-biting ride up the Mount Rose Highway (our ride down the highway last Thursday was a tricky one too). Again, it wasn't the snow level, but the blowing snow that made the drive trecherous. Of course, my brother Ken would never admit being nervous, but I definitely was! We made it back with no problems, and Ken made it back safely to his place in Carson City that afternoon. Enough driving already!

Turns out we were just a few hours ahead of an avalanche that closed the Mount Rose Highway that evening! They are pretty good about proactively dealing with known slide areas to prevent uncontrolled avalanches, but I guess this one sneaked up on 'em. The road was closed for 8 hours.

We awoke to 6-8 inches of new snow from last night here at lake level, and 2-3 feet of new snow up in the summits. It was a "snow day" for school kids--there were mandatory chain controls on Tahoe Blvd. this morning, which is rather unusual. That mountain of snow in our front yard (helped by snow plows and throwers) is about 10 feet high. It is cold up here--the high temp today was only 17 deg. F. Welcome home. Florida sure felt better than this! The winds kicked up today too--Lake Tahoe looks like the North Atlantic during a Nor'easter, and wind chill factors are well below zero.

But Mother Nature wasn't done--she threw in an EARTHQUAKE today! We got two pretty good jolts this afternoon. Turned out to be a magnitude 3.2 quake centered just a few miles north of town. It may have triggered another avalanche on US-50 between here and Carson City.

There is snow in the forecast all this week, but I think the worst of it is behind us for awhile. We'll see.

It is a winter wonderland up here, but you better stay on your toes!

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