Snow begins to cover mountain roads in California

AccuWeather spoke live with a Caltrans representative out in the ongoing blizzard about what it will take for any mountain passes to close.

Transcript

00:00 California's Sierra High Country is bracing for what will become the biggest

00:04 snowstorm of the season. This could become a potentially historic blizzard

00:08 and joining us in the snow from Kingville California is Jeremy Linder

00:12 public information officer for Caltrans Department the California Department of

00:16 Transportation as you're well aware. Jeremy I love that you're out in this

00:19 typically we speak with public information officers in the comfort of

00:23 their own home or in an office. So what are the conditions like out there?

00:27 So it's been a mix of everything for this morning I mean started off pretty

00:32 mild I did the trek all the way from the valley up into Kingville so first thing

00:38 this morning we were hitting some chain restrictions right there near the alt

00:41 area which is fairly mediocre for what we were looking for elevation this time

00:47 around. Climbed up a little bit as temperatures warmed up but once you got

00:52 to Kingville it's just been snowing non-stop the winds been picking up as

00:57 well I noticed especially on the backside of Donner Summit I was out with

01:01 the crews working the plow trucks and you could definitely see visibility drop

01:06 off on the backside of the mountain so one of the many things that we're

01:10 warning our motorists about to be prepared for or just flat-out don't go

01:14 during this storm wait it out. Yeah that totally sounds like the safer option but

01:19 at this point regarding road closures we're still early in the storm so on the

01:23 highways and mountain passes are they still open or do we expect you to see

01:29 announcements of closures relatively soon and also what would lead to that

01:32 decision being made? So they're still open the safe the highway has still been

01:38 deemed safe for traveling motorists they just need to take their time be prepared

01:41 there is definitely chain restrictions in place and I would expect that's not

01:46 going to be lifting anytime soon especially with the amount of snowfall

01:49 we're expecting for the rest of today tomorrow and then lingering into Sunday.

01:54 Now as we continue basically a lot of the factors that they're going to be

01:59 looking at is first of all whether if we start getting very limited visibility

02:04 near whiteout conditions or zero visibility crews will close the highway

02:09 if it's ultimately unsafe but that decision is made in real time based off

02:14 of the conditions. One of the other things we'll keep an eye out for is of

02:18 course always spin outs if we have several motorists getting an incident we

02:22 may have to either hold traffic or do a short-term closure where we get things

02:27 cleared up and then finally reopen. We've already done something similar westbound

02:31 earlier today. Okay well we appreciate all your information you being out there

02:36 in the elements Jeremy Linder public information officer with Caltrans thanks

02:39 again for joining us. Thanks for having me. No it's great to talk to you there

02:44 and good report there from I-80 and here we have the view from Lake Tahoe

02:47 California the trees getting globbed in snow 31 degrees