Tioga Road is set to open in Yosemite

Tioga Road in the Sierra should see its latest summer opening in two decades due to a combination of a huge winter snowpack, flooding from snowmelt and various repairs, Yosemite National Park officials said.

The road, which sits at an elevation of 10,000 feet and has been buried under snow that has weathered the spring and beginning of summer, was projected by park authorities to open Thursday — weather permitting. The road includes the Tioga Pass eastern entrance to the park and to Tuolumne Meadows.

If the pass does open Thursday, it will narrowly avert eclipsing a record dating to 1998 for being closed this late in the summer, according to park data.

The pass is usually open by the end of May, although in 1998 it didn’t open until July 1, according to park records.

“It’s the second snowiest year on record. If we look at Tuolumne Meadows, which Tioga runs right through, snowpack was 210 percent of average on April 1. The only snowier year than that was 1983, when it was 219 percent of average,” said Jan Null, a forecaster at Golden Gate Weather Services. “That year, it opened June 29.”

The amount of snow in Tuolumne Meadows is not a perfect indicator of when the road will open, Null said, noting the 1998 snowpack was just 152 percent of average.

“With the warm weather we’ve had, there’s actually flooding on some of the roadways. There’s lots of things that can go into what date it’ll open besides the snow,” Null said.