Some context:

It snowed about 5–7 feet in the Tahoe Basin this past week (Jan 3–7)

It then rained about 8–12" over ~ 2 days (Atmospehric Rivers, Yay!) (Jan 8–9)

Sunday there were some gusts of ~175MPH at Mountain Ridges. Several weather stations went completely offline.

Last Night (Sunday — Jan 9), over Donner Pass (elev 7000ft) there was a giant mudslide and has closed I-80 in both directions for at least 2 days. This is very unusual — I-80 is a major East/West trucking route. It connects from San Francisco to Chicago.

Lake Tahoe is now above it’s natural rim, so it starts to flow into the Truckee River (over the dam at Tahoe City). Any spillover, doesn’t really help California’s water situation — because it all ends up flowing down to Reno, then into Pyramid lake in Nevada (about 2 hours from the Black Rock Desert — site of Burning Man).

The Truckee River gathers a lot of its water from tributary creeks feeding into it along it’s path. In the photos below the river goes from pretty chill to somewhat raging over about 20 miles. Each creek feeding into it — adds to its overall flow rate.

See the Chart below of the Lake Tahoe gauge height to see how full it is now. It is not usually at current level during mid-winter (from USGS).