California's endless winter: 8 feet of snow still on the ground in June

Doyle Rice | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Winter won't let go to some parts of California Snowboarders and skiers are living the dream in California with unseasonably high levels of mountain snow.

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated how long it had been since the June snowpack was this large. The amount of snow on the ground in the central Sierra region this week marked the biggest June snowpack in years.

It's an endless winter in the West.

Snow from the barrage of storms that pounded the western mountains over the winter is still on the ground. Many mountains in the Rockies, Sierra and Cascades are packed with at least 8 feet of snow, the National Weather Service said, creating a dream summer for skiers and snowboarders.

The Mammoth Mountain ski area in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., is seeing its "best spring conditions in decades ... and will be operating DAILY into August for one of our longest seasons in history," the resort said on its website. "When will this endless winter end? We don’t have that answer yet, but we do know that the skiing and riding is all-time right now."

Earlier this year, the snowpack throughout the Sierra rivaled, and in places exceeded, records set during the massive winter of 1982-83. As of June 6, the amount of snow on the ground in the central Sierra region was twice as much as usual, marking its biggest June snowpack in years, the California Department of Water Resources said. In late winter and early spring, the snowpack was as large as it had been in decades.

Summer shredding! Mammoth will be open daily into August with the best conditions in the country. Get out here and get your summer shred on. pic.twitter.com/9TqKKFBAsl — MammothMountain (@MammothMountain) May 26, 2017

“We are in rare territory here with the winter we’ve had,” said Chris Smallcomb, a meteorologist with the weather service in Reno, the office that also covers the Sierra in California.

The snow can be a deadly hazard, though, for hikers or water enthusiasts. Snow-covered routes make walking difficult and falls on steep slopes can result in long, dangerous and uncontrolled slides.

Streams will also be rising and become deeper and more powerful, bringing a real danger of drowning for kayakers or hikers who fall in.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, three people died and 24 required rescue from the swollen and frigid Kern River in Southern California. All three deaths involved rafting incidents.

The winter snow and rain delivered a knockout blow to the five-year drought in central and northern California. Drought still hangs on, though, in portions of Southern California.

And there's still more snow on the way this weekend: Several inches are possible across the highest elevations of the Washington and Oregon Cascades, as well as high mountain locations in Idaho, western Montana, western Wyoming, northeast Utah, and parts of northern Colorado into Tuesday, according to the Weather Channel.

The best chance of 6 or more inches of snow will be in the Cascades and in the Bitterroots of Idaho and Montana.

Contributing: Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal; The Associated Press

June 4th superpipe summer session...say it 3 times & try not smiling 🌅thanks @squawalpine for another Funday Sunday! pic.twitter.com/6rCkkpyZcm — StompSessions (@StompSessions) June 4, 2017



