Tahoe Road Info for SR88 (kirkwood), US50 (South Lake Tahoe), and I80 (North Lake Tahoe)

or making caltrans road reports more livable

See this link for more details of the problems with Caltrans Communication and why I started this page. To be fair to Caltrans, at least as of 2017, they have been giving updates on twitter.
It is kind of a shame that those updates are not available on their official site, but in the meantime, I've made them available on this page (although this is best effort by scraping twitter). Actually sometimes Kirkwood twitter has info that caltrans twitter does not...

Purpose

This page helps with the following things:

Get real time reports of roads changes for hwy 88 (kirkwood, district 10), hwy 50 (south lake tahoe, district 3), and hwy 80 (north lake tahoe, district 3), as well as hwy 89 (around lake tahoe,district 10 and 3). Here is the district map. District 10 is district10publicaffairs at dot.ca.gov (209 948-7977), and district 3 is D3.Public.Information.Office at dot.ca.gov + public_information_office at dot.ca.gov and (530 741-4566)
Google maps showing the caltrans reporting points for road reports to and around Tahoe (most of those reports are pretty useless if you don't know where "Peddler Hill" or "Nayak" (really Nyak) are located).
History of changes to those roads (since caltrans doesn't provide that). Did you ever wonder if Carson Spur (hwy88 to kirkwood) closed last night and for how long?

Other sources of data

Magnifeye is a nice site if you're mainly interested in hwy 80 and hwy 50 (pretty useless for hwy 88/kirkwood).
NOAA Kirkwood
Snow-forecast Kirkwood,
Opensnow Kirkwood

Latest sr88, sr89, us50, and i80 STATUS

2024:12:17 11:51 Status for sr88 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
SR 88
[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA & SIERRA NEVADA]
No traffic restrictions are reported for this area.

2024:12:19 21:27 Status for us50 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
US 50
[IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY & THE LAKE TAHOE BASIN]
No traffic restrictions are reported for this area.
[CAPITAL CITY FREEWAY]
No traffic restrictions are reported for this area.

2024:12:20 07:45 Status for i80 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
I 80
[IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA - SOLANO CO]
Eastbound traffic is reduced to 1 lane 7 mi east of Truckee (Nevada Co) at 0730 hrs on 12/20/24 - Due to a traffic collision
[IN THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA & SIERRA NEVADA]
All westbound trucks are required to stop at the brake check area 0.5 mi west of Nyack (Placer Co) - To reduce the risk of brake fires

2024:12:17 15:27 Status for sr89 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
SR 89
[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA & SIERRA NEVADA]
Is closed from the Jct of US 395 (Mono Co) to the Jct of SR 4 /Monitor Pass/ (Alpine Co) - Due to snow - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route
[IN THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA]
Is closed from the Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park South Bdry to the Jct of SR 44 /Lassen Loop/ (Tehama, Shasta Co) - For the winter - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route

Latest sr88, sr89, us50, and i80 Caltrans Unofficial Twitter Announcements

The updates below are scraped from http://twitter.com/caltransdist3 , http://twitter.com/CaltransDist10, and http://twitter.com/KWConditions (yes, sometimes KW twitter has info that caltrans twitter does not). This is best effort and could be missing updates. Also please note the date and time next to each update

Last 3 twitter update from the last 3 days only (if any) for sr88 (full archive: http://marc.merlins.org/snow/roadinfo/sr88/twitter/ ):

Last 3 twitter update from the last 3 days only (if any) for us50 (full archive: http://marc.merlins.org/snow/roadinfo/us50/twitter/ ):

Last 3 twitter update from the last 3 days only (if any) for i80 (full archive: http://marc.merlins.org/snow/roadinfo/i80/twitter/ ):

Last 3 twitter update from the last 3 days only (if any) for sr89 (full archive: http://marc.merlins.org/snow/roadinfo/sr89/twitter/ ):

Latest sr88, sr89, us50, and i80 Caltrans dot.ca.gov UPDATES

Please note the - and + in front of each line: - means the line in the previous report (line removed), and + is in the new report (line added)

2024:12:17 11:51 change for sr88 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
-Chains are required on all vehicles except 4-wheel-drive vehicles with snow tires on all 4 wheels from Kirkwood (Amador Co) to 5 mi west of Picketts Jct (Alpine Co)

2024:12:19 21:27 change for us50 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
-Is closed to eastbound traffic at Sly Park Rd /in Pollock Pines/ (El Dorado Co) at 1729 hrs on 12/19/24 - Due to a traffic collision - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route

2024:12:20 07:45 change for i80 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
-Eastbound traffic is being held 7 mi east of Truckee (Nevada Co) - Due to a traffic collision

2024:12:17 15:27 change for sr89 from https://roads.dot.ca.gov/:
-Is closed from the Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park South Bdry to the Jct of SR 44 /Lassen Loop/ (Tehama, Shasta Co) - For the winter - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route
-Chains are required on all vehicles except 4-wheel-drive vehicles with snow tires on all 4 wheels from 5 mi north to 6 mi north of the Jct of US 50 (El Dorado Co)
-Chains are required on all vehicles except 4-wheel-drive vehicles with snow tires on all 4 wheels from Bliss State Park to Sugar Pine State Park (El Dorado Co)
-Chains or snow tires are required from Sugar Pine State Park (El Dorado Co) to Tahoe City (Placer Co)
-Chains or snow tires are required from Squaw Valley Rd (Placer Co) to the Jct of I 80 (Nevada Co)
+Is closed from the Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park South Bdry to the Jct of SR 44 /Lassen Loop/ (Tehama, Shasta Co) - For the winter - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route

Get real time sr88, sr89, us50, and i80 changes via Email

You can subscribe to one or more of those lists (or the last one for all):

http://lists.merlins.org/lists/listinfo/tahoeroads for SR88, US50, and I80 combined (not SR89). List archive here.
http://lists.merlins.org/lists/listinfo/sr88 for real time reports from http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/sr88. List archive here.
http://lists.merlins.org/lists/listinfo/us50 for real time reports from http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/us50. List archive here.
http://lists.merlins.org/lists/listinfo/i80 for real time reports from http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/i80. List archive here.
http://lists.merlins.org/lists/listinfo/sr89 for real time reports from http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/sr89. List archive here.

This is an Email example (notice the - and + to show the state change):

The data below is a sample, not the up to date data (which is above)
Update in http://marc.merlins.org/snow/roadinfo/sr88/ : 2010:12:05 03:55
Change since last update:
-[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA & SIERRA NEVADA] CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH SNOW TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS FROM 3.5 MI EAST OF SILVER LAKE (AMADOR CO) TO PICKETTS JCT (ALPINE CO)
-CHAINS OR SNOW TIRES ARE REQUIRED FROM PICKETTS JCT TO 1 MI WEST OF WOODFORDS (ALPINE CO)
+[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA & SIERRA NEVADA] CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH SNOW TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS FROM 6.5 MI EAST OF PEDDLER HILL TO KIRKWOOD (AMADOR CO)
+CHAINS OR SNOW TIRES ARE REQUIRED FROM KIRKWIOD TO 1 MI WEST OF WOODFORDS (ALPINE CO)

New state from http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/sr88
[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA & SIERRA NEVADA] CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH SNOW TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS FROM 6.5 MI EAST OF PEDDLER HILL TO KIRKWOOD (AMADOR CO) CHAINS OR SNOW TIRES ARE REQUIRED FROM KIRKWIOD TO 1 MI WEST OF WOODFORDS (ALPINE CO)
Main page with google maps of Caltrans reporting points:
http://marc.merlins.org/snow/tahoe_caltrans.shtml

See you on the slopess

I'm the snowboarder with poles, because it's the best way to go to deep powder and get out if I get a bit too greedy :) If you see me (I'm usually at Kirkwood during dumps), don't be shy, say hi!

You can also read my snow here: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/snow/

Google Maps

Unfortunately Google broke my map with all caltrans reporting points. You have to click on this link to the maps to see it in another window.

Change history

It's not fancy, but I'm providing it in text form for you to download/parse if you wish: Tahoe Road Info History

Weather Underground Nexrad

Weather underground makes a pretty kick ass nexrad map for real time conditions (make sure to click the radar layer)

As an example, this is what it looks like on a 'good' day :)
data below is a sample, up to date data is above

Graphical Map from Caltrans

Caltrans has a map that is useful to showing chain signs and some CHP incident info with graphical location (click CHP incidents and Chain Controls): sadly the page include again does not work well so please click on this

Graphical Map from Nevada DOT

Nevada DOT has a nice graphical map that Caltrans could learn from. They do include the CA side of the roads you care about (click on the map to get an interactive one where you can mouse over portions of roads for more details)
Understand that their map based on mostly unparseable Caltrans text data with typos and no rules, and therefore it is unfortunately wrong on occasion.

Looking for reasonably priced lodging at kirkwood?

If so, give Pyramid Peak Properties a call: (877) 659-9376, they have a good selection of rentals are cheaper pricing than what you'll get from the main kirkwood lodge. I'm only giving the req because they've been good to me and I hate having to drive from KW back to South Lake Tahoe for lodging :) (ok, to be fair, it still won't be cheap, KW is not cheap, it'll just be cheaper).

FAQ

Can you support more roads/how do I run this myself?
I'm not really planning on adding more roads, but you're welcome to use my code to do your own: roadinfo script.

Email
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