The Latest Breaking News from Sierra

The risk of catastrophic flooding in the Tulare Lake Basin has diminished as cool temperatures have predominated this spring, flattening the melt curve of the Sierra’s epic snowpack, state officials said Monday.

It didn't take long for a team of highway archaeologists to mark their first find while searching for buried human remains on an aging stretch of U.S. Highway 395 that cuts along the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada range.

Emily and Jeremy Cross from Scotts Valley are planning to travel with their two boys to a family reunion in July at a Sierra Nevada campground. But a big, frozen question hangs over the trip: Will California’s near-record snowpack melt in time?

BUCK MEADOWS, Calif. — For 170 years, the gold deposits along Sierra stream beds have been so poked and prodded that easy supplies of the precious metal have grown scarce and are a challenge to find.

LOS ANGELES — The Kern River is swollen with so much runoff from the epic Sierra Nevada snowpack that state water officials have decided to open a rarely used relief valve, diverting floodwaters into the California Aqueduct to be used as drinking water in Southern California.

Three popular campgrounds at California’s Yosemite National Park will be temporarily closed starting Monday because of a forecast of flooding as warming temperatures melt the Sierra Nevada’s massive snowpack

Much of the famed valley at California’s Yosemite National Park will be temporarily closed starting Friday due to a forecast of flooding as rising temperatures melt the Sierra Nevada’s massive snowpack

SAN JOSE, Calif. — It was the snowpack reading that spawned a hundred headlines. “California ties 1952 record for all-time Sierra snowpack,” proclaimed KTVU. “California’s snowpack soars to record high after 17 atmospheric rivers,” trumpeted the Washington Post.

The winter that wouldn’t quit has showed up again in the Sierra Nevada region of California and Nevada

Just as federal officials were laying out alternative scenarios last week for steep water supply cuts from the Colorado River due to the drying Southwest, California officials were warning that this year’s historic Sierra snowpack could flood much of the state later this year.

Imagine racing down a steep river of recently melted snow toward a roaring rapid.