Today at 07:35:00 PM by
C Falkenstein
Yosemite Falls Moonbow 9:30pm 5/11/06
Hwy 140 is CLOSED from a rock slide, 6 miles west of El Portal. It may reopen 5/22/06
Link to Caltran HWY page HWY 140 or call 209 372 0200, press 1, press 1.
Tioga road progress - May 16, 2006
Great progress yesterday. The crews are now at Yosemite Creek Campground.
They were able to plow 3.3 miles. The average snow depth is now down to an
average of 5 feet. Tuesday, May 16 they start going up Yosemite Creek
grade. This will be a slower process and will be entering the Yose Creek
avalanche zone.
Tioga road progress - May 15, 2006
Saturday, the crews finished the day at approximately 16 miles in from
Crane Flat. Snow depth is 11 feet. No major problems. Progress is slow
due to the deep and heavy snow.
Glacier Point road progress - May 16, 2006
Great progress here too. The Wawona crew was able to plow a total distance
of 4 miles. They are now 7.2 miles in from Badger Pass. The average snow
depth has dropped to only 3 feet.
Sentinel Falls 5/13/06
May 1 Snow Survey Results: An impressively wet April has added substantial
amounts of water to the snowpack. Some courses gained over 20 inches of
water over the month! Overall, the Tuolumne drainage is 179% of average
and the Merced drainage is 192% of average ( The difference has more to do
with the greater percentage of low elevation courses in the Tuolumne
drainage than any real differences in the snowpack). We are about 7% over
last year's water content. Last May, however, had several big storms (350%
of average precipitation for the month), so if this May is near average we
should be about even with last year by the end of the month.
2006 is the sixth wettest snowpack on record for the park. The high
elevation snowpack is even more impressive. This is the fourth biggest
snowpack on record (behind only 83, 95, and 69) for courses above 7500'.
These courses are about 210% of average. Complete results for park courses
shown below.
Course Elev. Depth Water content
Dana Meadows 9,800 114.1 54.4
Tenaya Lake 8,150 122.6 52.6
Tuolumne Meadows 8,600 82.5 40.2
Snow Flat 8,700 162.4 82.5
Gin Flat 7,000 89.0 45.0
Tuolumne Basin Average Pct. of April 1: 147%
May 1: 179%
