2022-23-Snow

2023 was the 2nd highest snow fall at UC Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Lab (CSSL) at Donner Summit since they started measuring in 1946. 1952 was the highest.

See Snow for more.

The snow in the yard reached a maximum of 9.5' at the beginning of March.
Warm weather and rain lowered the snow depth despite more snow in March.

The screen door with plexiglas in the bottom section held up well.

The snow went up 6" on the south living room screen

Snow on the back bedroom reached a dangerous level

Snow after Don Macey and I shoveled soft snow off the top so it would not absorb rain in the forecast. We got down to icy/hardback which would shed the water.

Dennis sent some guys over a week later after more snow accumulated.
Virey's shoveling.
It was too hard to shovel so they sawed it into cubes and shoveled/rolled them down.
4 guys 4 hrs. Each @ $64/hr. $992.
Snow shoveling adds at Tahoma Market. Rates have been $100/hr+

Virey shoveling movie

I guess there was enough heat in that loft to melt some of the snow and it created a 1'+ thick ice dam where the roof overhung the cabin.
It overhung the edge of the roof with icy snow on top, so snow melt tablets just slipped off.
1. I hooked up a hose to the hot water tank and created a ledge over the dam.
2 I put a line of ice melt tablets every 3 or 4 feet to weaken it
3. Then used a shale bar to break off sections.
They weighed around 50# (based on some bags of rock I had been working with around my house)
This picture was before the Virey boys removed the snow above. There was more snow in the forecast and I didn't know they were coming, so went ahead with the ice dam removal as much as to save the shingles as allow more snow to slide off.
Wnen that snow came down it piled up almost to the roof, so I was able to roll the ice blocks away from the house so they didn't smash into the siding.

I rigged up a snow roof rake to get some more off.

Tom shut the sutters on the south side in the middle of April because there was still a lot of snow to come off that center section roof.

Because of the weather cycles in 2022-23, more freeze/thaw cycles and rain the damage potential from snow was a lot greater.

snow type density [lbs/cu ft]

Fresh snow 3.75

Damp fresh snow 6.87

Settled snow 15.61

Wind-packed snow 23.41

Very wet snow 46.82

Ice 57.25

Wet snow it 12 times heavier than fresh snow.

snow type	density [lbs/cu ft]
Fresh snow	3.75
Damp fresh snow	6.87
Settled snow	15.61
Wind-packed snow	23.41
Very wet snow	46.82
Ice	57.25

There were a lot more homes damaged. Here's a Tahoma home.

I compared the estimated load on the back bedroom with the building codes.
The building codes for our location require support for a load of 24.5 Pounds per square foot (PCF)
The estimated load of the 9 feet of 2 icy snow base layers with a frest layer on the top with rain forecast which would be absorbed by the fresh layer was 25.9 PCF. We had the additional problem with more snow on the north than the south which put us in greater potential risk, so we were in real danger of collapse.
People to shovel snow were all booked up.
Don Macey helped me get the fresh layer off the top, leaving the icy layer which would shed the rain, so we avoided a collapse.

See Snow Load (wight density) for the snow weight and how close we came to having a cave-in.