■Blizzard drops 10 feet of snow at Sugar Bowl ski resort in Northern California.

■Statewide snow water equivalent is 104% of normal through Monday.

■There’s a chance of showers in Fresno on Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Thanks to the powerful weekend storm, state water managers can uncork the champagne.

Short documentary of the California Leap Day Blizzard 2024 that slammed Donner Pass and the Lake Tahoe region.

What an amazing storm with up to 127 inches of snow reported near Donner Pass! #CAwx https://t.co/4398uQSXjH pic.twitter.com/xxMH3l6iSq

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) March 4, 2024

Monday’s California Cooperative Snow Surveys report put the snow water equivalent statewide at 104% of normal for the date and 94% of the April 1 average.

What an unbelievable comeback California’s snowpack has made this year, going from just 28% of normal on January 1 to 104% of normal today.

This pretty much guarantees that California will be drought-free again this summer for the second year in a row! #CAwx pic.twitter.com/UTpQwMqlDj

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) March 5, 2024

And, while the news wasn’t as robust for the Southern Sierra, the snow water equivalent there should still translate into good news for San Joaquin Valley communities and farms this summer.

At the beginning of January, the state snowpack was just 28% of normal to date.

The Valley Week Ahead Forecast

Fresno received .74 inches of rain last week — not as much as was in the forecast but enough to boost the water season total to 7 inches.

Among Valley communities, Merced is getting the most rain and has nearly matched its “normal” season average of 11.80 inches.

The latest forecast from the National Weather Service in Hanford calls for mostly sunny skies today through Tuesday afternoon. There’s a slight chance of showers Tuesday night followed by a 30% chance of rain Wednesday dropping to 20% Wednesday night.

Sunny skies with highs in the low and mid-60s are expected Thursday and Friday.

The Climate Prediction Center says that Central Valley precipitation will be near normal from March 11 through March 17.

Blizzard Snarls Traffic, Fells Power Lines, Dumps 10 Feet of Snow

Sugar Bowl, a ski resort nestled 7,000 feet up among the northern Sierra peaks, recorded the highest amounts of snow (10 feet) from the storm that began barreling into the region Thursday and was finally dissipating on Monday.

The weekend blizzard caused traffic backups and closures on Interstate 80 and other roadways and shut down ski resorts from the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area to Sugar Bowl with the warning covering a 300-mile stretch of the mountains. It also left thousands of homes and businesses without power as fierce winds lashed the Sierra.

A long stretch of I-80 from west of Lake Tahoe over Donner Summit to the Nevada state line reopened to all but big rigs late Monday morning, but chains or snow tires were required, the California Highway Patrol’s Truckee office said.

The mountain pass, which can be perilous in snow, is named for the infamous Donner Party, a group of pioneers who resorted to cannibalism after getting trapped there in the winter of 1846-1847.

(Associated Press contributed to this story.)