Lowest Temps

[dave54]

The coldest officially recorded in the state is -45 at Boca.

In January 1989 there was a real cold snap in the northern part of the range. A mound of cold Canadian air drifted south and west across the Great Basin and slopped over the crest. It hit -30 at my house. (I also had to drive to Chico that morning, about an hour an a half normally. Not fun!)
While none of the temps I read about that day approached the record -45, the following Spring I was talking to an old timer that had a cabin at Silver Lake. He had a recording max/min thermometer on his porch (the ones with the little magnets in the U shaped tubes). He said when he opened his cabin up in April the thermometer showed a low temp of -54. There is no way to determine which day that temperature occurred, and that is not any official reading. There also is a margin of error in that kind of thermometer, although I doubt the error would be as large as +/- 9 degrees.

[longri]

I posted the Boca temperature earlier in this thread. But is Truckee (or Silver Lake) part of the Sierra as we usually think of it?

[dave54]

Truckee is definitely in the Sierra. This Silver Lake (edge of Caribou Wilderness) is not. It is Cascades.
The Sierra extends well north of Lake Tahoe, to Almanor area. (IMHO the best part). You can argue the exact point depending on which definition you use. There is a road cut on Hwy 89 north of Canyon Dam with the south half of the cut granite and the north half basalt. OTOH there is Sierra granite along the Bizz Johnson Trail in the Goumaz area.

[longri]

Yes, you're right of course. I guess I think in terms of the "High" Sierra which terminates with the Sawtooth range. Although I know that in terms of geology the Sierra includes Tahoe I always think of Tahoe as, well... as Tahoe. It's got a different feel, to me at least. And this is highsierratopix.com, not sierratopix.com.

It's interesting to me that you think the northernmost part of the Sierra is the best. I haven't been to the Almanor area ever, not one time. What makes it so special? I imagine it to be a heavily forested area. Is it? I notice it includes Butt Mountain. That could be in the place names thread.

[SSSdave]

Upon doing a map tour along the Sierra Crest, I would expect that the coldest place in the Sierra Nevada during winter on calm clear nights may be in the Williamson Bowl at either lake 3713 a talus depression without an outlet or Lake Helen of Troy at 3816 feet.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=36.65960,-118.33069&z=14&t=T

During winter none of the bottom areas of the broad bowl receive any sun due to high ridges east and the crest west.
It would be covered by snow.
There is a bowl narrows air sumping dam above lake 3597 with considerably broad areas of air volume behind that air dam that become trapped with slow escape.
High areas east of the crest will generally be cooler than those west, all else being equal, because they have more time to cool due to earlier afternoon shadows.
Elevations are well above 12k and note generally temperatures decrease at 3F degrees per 1000 feet altitude.

On the con side that zone is rather south in the range.

Another really cold place for similar reasons is the Goethe Cirque as once again it is a high basin with a narrow air dam where cold air can escape.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.21737,-118.70689&z=14&t=T

My expectation is Goethe may be the coldest place in the range during summers as another factor that comes into play is talus that after snow melts becomes a considerable source of cold temperatures within ever dark talus labyrinths. During summer on otherwise calm late mornings where one enters the cirque at the lower lake, there is often a howling local wind of cold air escaping through that canyon narrows. Not a place a natural science knowledgeable photographer would go to expect a reflection photo haha.

Another really cold location would be the southern areas of Fourth Recess below Mt Mills about Snow Lakes.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.41666,-118.79040&z=14&t=T

For CDEC weather professionals without anything better to do, it would be interesting to set up remote temperature sites in those places that I'd expect would break state records. To do so they would need to rely on an energy source other than solar that is often used since the sites would be always shadowed in winter.

[dave54]

...It's interesting to me that you think the northernmost part of the Sierra is the best. I haven't been to the Almanor area ever, not one time. What makes it so special? I imagine it to be a heavily forested area. Is it? I notice it includes Butt Mountain. That could be in the place names thread.

Personal bias. Proximity bias. This part of the state gets a lot less use than the southern and central part. Not many places in Sierra you can hike on summer weekend and not see another person for the entire trip. You can here. No quotas, no permits, no itinerary approval. A lot fewer regulations.