Snowpack in Yosemite

I'm heading up to the Sierras in May so I was trying to calculate when Tioga Pass will open, based on previous dates. NPS is pretty smart to say "we don't know" and then give the actual data since 1980 so you can make a bet if you want to. May 12 is my best guess based on a linear regression with R^2 of 0.7194. (Don't email me a month from now and say "I planned on May 12 and it wasn't open!" because I'm not as nice as the people who run Yosemite and I will make fun of you.)


From globalwarming.org.

I also checked this data to see if Sierra snowpack is decreasing, since that's the conventional wisdom. The R^2 there was much less robust so it's not worth giving the answer here for only 30-odd years of data; but here's a study last year that says it's been consistent over 130 years.