California's Winter Storms Do Little to Ease Climate Change Worries

Here are the headline stories for the morning of Monday, February 23rd, 2026:

• The string of storms that have swept through California has brought much-needed water and snow throughout the state, but climate scientists say, levels may still fall short of what’s needed in the coming warm weather months.
• The town of Truckee held a memorial for the victims of last week’s avalanche in the Sierra. This comes after search and rescue crews finished recovering all nine of their bodies over the weekend.
• State Senator, Scott Wiener, is proposing legislation to force a split between San Francisco and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Low Overall Snow Levels Leave Experts Worried About California’s Long Term Water Supplies 

Ever since California was pummeled by a series of storms in fall and early winter, experts have said the state’s water supply is looking strong for this year.

Those storms — with a potential bump from the ones hitting much of the state this week — have helped refill reservoirs and eased immediate drought worries in many parts of the state.

But experts also say that a few wet storms don’t mean we’re out of the woods. That’s because this winter is a “classically climate-change-flavored one,” according to Daniel Swain, a weather and climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

And that’s not because it’s been a particularly dry winter, he explained. It’s because it’s the warmest winter the West has ever seen.

“In the Western U.S., the snowpack is, on average, terrible,” Swain said. “It’s about as bad as it’s ever been in observed history.”

This warm winter creates a wrinkle: While the season’s rain has turned hillsides green, temperatures haven’t been cold enough at low enough elevations to bring as much snow as usual.

Truckee Holds Candlelight Vigil Amid a Tragic February 

The town of Truckee in the Sierra held a candlelight vigil last night, amid a string of tragedies in the last few weeks has thrust the small mountain community into the national spotlight.

Last night’s vigil was organized by Truckee’s Vice Mayor, Courtney Henderson, and was held at the Eagle Statue in downtown. The event comes on the heels of the deadliest avalanche in California history.

The avalanche blanketed the region near Castle Peak at Donner Summit on Tuesday. A group of 15 back-country skiers were caught in the disaster. A total of nine people died in the avalanche. Search and rescue crews were slowed by strong gusts and heavy snow throughout the week–before avalanche mitigation efforts and calmer weather conditions allowed them to recover the bodies of the nine victims on Friday and Saturday.

Four of the victims had connections to the Bay Area.

Henderson told KQED that the avalanche came at a time when Truckee was already grappling with the aftermath of two incidents that took place earlier in the month.

On February 7th, a man was arrested after he drove his car into a little league baseball team as they were fundraising outside a Safeway grocery store on Donner Pass Road. The man injured four children and four adults.

About a week later, a 15-year-old opened fire on a group of people during an altercation in the parking lot of a different grocery store. Nobody was injured in the shooting.

As attendees left flowers and written messages at the site of the vigil to honor those lost, Henderson shared a message of togetherness during these dark times.

The Vice Mayor said, “Grief has a way of making us feel very small and very isolated. My deepest hope for tonight is that you feel the opposite. Held by the hundreds of neighbors who showed up tonight because that is simply what we do.”