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Eight skiers have been found dead after an avalanche near Castle Peak, but day after day of heavy snow across the Sierra means more avalanches are still possible.
Transcript
00:00To the latest now out of California, we're learning more about that deadly avalanche.
00:04The search for nine missing hikers following an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada.
00:07So at a press conference today, the Nevada County Sheriff's Office says eight skiers have been found dead.
00:13One still remains missing.
00:15The avalanche happened yesterday near Castle Peak, just northwest of Lake Tahoe.
00:20Officials say 15 skiers were caught in the slide.
00:23Six were later found alive and rescued.
00:25First responders battled whiteout conditions to find those missing as the threat of more avalanches remains high.
00:32Let's go to Truckee, California now.
00:34And out this way, look at the snow coming down.
00:36Very, very, very impressive.
00:38It's like a snow globe.
00:39And, you know, it looked like this yesterday and it looked like this the day before that.
00:42So we're just dealing with day after day of widespread heavy snow.
00:46A pretty incredible scene here.
00:48And there's the train.
00:49A lot of train traffic there.
00:50Every time we take this cam, it looks like another train's going by.
00:53But HD ONTAP with a great view of the heavy snow.
00:56Let's take a look at radar and satellite.
00:57So we've gone through these episodes of off and on rain and snow.
01:02And six hours ago, it was a little quieter there in the Sierra with lighter snow.
01:06But as we get to the end of this loop here, you're going to see that we're dealing with, again,
01:11the return of some widespread snow.
01:14And, again, radar may make it look kind of timid.
01:16You just see some lighter blue.
01:18But I think that the ground truth is really evidenced by that webcam there from HD ONTAP.
01:23It goes to show you that radar doesn't really vividly show every snowflake all that well sometimes in the mountains.
01:29And, number two, if you're up there on the west slopes of the mountains and you have any indication of
01:33snow on radar,
01:34it's really coming down pretty heavily with a setup like this.
01:37So the high Sierra is seeing 8 to 12 feet of snow and road closures, that deadly avalanche.
01:44There's a lot of danger tied to this.
01:45There's also some positive in that the snowpack, it's a healthy thing when it's deep.
01:51But these transitions are tough, going from limited snow to lots of snow.
01:55Southern Sierra is almost back up to average.
01:57We still have about 50 percent of normal up to the north for the date.
02:01But, remember, we've got another storm in progress tonight to tomorrow and then another one, really two more, next week.
02:06So we're going to continue to see improvements come.
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