Nestled in at Donner Pass just 10 miles south of Truckee is UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL), one of the best instrumented and longest-running snow study sites in the world. 

But that’s not all that makes it unique: It’s also the only snow research field station in the Western U.S. that is staffed by a scientist year-round. 

The lab has been recording snow data in the Sierra Nevada mountains for more than 75 years, producing continuous records of snow and rain precipitation and temperature since it was founded in 1946. And, thanks to the addition of Southern Pacific Railroad data, the lab can see snowfall trends as far back 1879, providing one of the longest manual snow depth records on the planet. 

“The snow lab was the pinnacle of snow science for a very long time, and still is, for a large portion of California,” said Andrew Schwartz in a March 2022 article by Robert Sanders posted on the lab’s website. Schwartz has been the manager of the lab since 2021. 

Schwartz’s lab, and home, is a U.S. Forest Service building that sits on what locals call Snow Lab Hill. At an elevation of 6,894 feet, the lab’s location is one of the snowiest in the country. 

According to Sanders, the CSSL was originally part of a trio of snow labs that were joint projects between the U.S. Weather Bureau and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Rocky Mountains, Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada; it is the only one still standing. The U.S. Forest Service ran the lab from 1954 to 1995 before it shut down.

That opened up the chance for UC Berkeley to take it over in 1996. Lead scientist Randall Osterhuber retired in 2019 after 24 years of dedicated service at the lab. Schwartz came on board in 2021, and has brought new life to the lab during a time when record snow in the Sierras has made national news. 

The lab’s decades of unmatched data on daily temperature, snowfall and snowpack measurements provides a unique opportunity to observe long-term trends.

“We have those long records to look at over the last 75-odd years to really try to determine what the current trends in temperature and precipitation are, compared to some of those stations that might only have a few years of data,” Schwartz told Sanders. 

“The benefit of having this long record is we can see the trends that are starting to emerge from things like climate change,” he said.

While there are hundreds of automated snow stations in the Sierra Nevada, only the CSSL has a scientist on site around the clock to manually check instruments and measurements. 

“The site is kind of unique in that there’s a lot of the same measurements being made with multiple different instruments,” Schwartz said.

The lab’s data is vital for state and federal water managers in California and across the West. 

“Snow science is more important than it’s ever been, especially in the West, where snow contributes so much to our water resources,” said Schwartz. “The snowpack is effectively a water tower that sits up on top of the mountain and allows stored water to slowly trickle into reservoirs and streams.” 

Still, runoff forecasts aren’t always easy. When the snowpack melts earlier in the season due to warmer weather or even impacts from wildfires, the water in reservoirs and streams can evaporate faster. That means less water may be available during the warmer summer months. Schwartz called California’s dramatic shifts from extremely dry to wet months “whiplash weather,” thanks no doubt to climate change. 
For winter outdoor recreation enthusiasts, Schwartz’s job may seem like a dream come true. In his free time, he enjoys snowboarding and snowshoeing in the winter. To get a visual on a day in the life of Dr. Schwartz, check out a 5-minute video about his work at the snow lab here.