So you think this was a big storm?

For those of you who feel that this latest snow storm couldn't have been much worse, well, you ain't seen nothing yet as this look back at winter weather in Lake Tahoe will show you.

A big snowstorm in early January 1916 kicked off the late-starting winter that year.

Soon four to six feet of snow buried locations around Lake Tahoe.

Mid-month another cold storm barreled into the Sierra and snow literally cascaded out of the sky.

Railroad officials in Truckee noted a snowfall intensity of eight inches per hour.

Automobiles proved worthless in the deepening snow, which forced physicians to saddle up their horses to reach their patients.

At the end of January, Tahoe City struggled with 20 feet of new snow, a month old timers would rather forget.

Heavy snowstorms during the winter of 1931-32 downed telephone and telegraph wires between Truckee and Tahoe City.

When deep drifts also shut down the Lake Tahoe Railway and closed the auto road between the two communities, the only communication between Tahoe City and the rest of the world relied on a horse-drawn mail sled.

The road to Truckee was closed from mid-December to mid-February and the snow kept piling up.

By New Year's Eve, precipitation totals on North Lake Tahoe were 167 percent of normal and the snowpack was crushing houses.

More storms in January and February 1932 reduced Highway 40 to a single lane that was opened only intermittently.

On Feb. 1, three feet of snow fell in 24 hours, trapping a train near Big Chief on the Truckee River; 120 passengers were stranded onboard for two days.

Residents in Tahoe City dug tunnels to their homes when drifts reached 25 feet.

The winter of 1931-32 dumped almost 600 inches of snow on the drought-stricken region, boosting water levels in Lake Tahoe nearly three feet, assuring ample flow into the Truckee River.

The winter of 1937-38 dumped an all-time snowfall record of 819 inches on Donner Pass, but the season started off with an epic rain event.

Sub-tropical moisture invaded the region in December 1937, which deluged Lake Tahoe with nearly 10 inches of rain and raised the lake level by nine inches in just three days.

In January 1938, a barrage of cold storms inundated elevations above 7,000 feet with nearly 12 feet of snow in less than a week.

Blizzards continued to assault the Sierra, and Tahoe City residents became isolated in February when more than nine feet of snow in seven days buried the community and cut off all communication.

Overwhelming snow shut down Southern Pacific's horse-drawn express mail and passenger stageline between Truckee and Tahoe City for 10 days. Harry Johanson, the local constable in Tahoe City, attempted a trek to Truckee for the mail, but his canine team floundered helplessly in the bottomless powder.

One day the steamer that circled the lake with mail and deliveries arrived in Tahoe City.

The captain mentioned that if anyone wanted some horse meat, it was available at Glenbrook, Nev.

Apparently a caretaker there had shot a horse due to injury and was willing to share the meat if anyone was interested.

Somehow the story spread to San Francisco and even Los Angeles that isolated Tahoe residents were running out of food.

The San Francisco Call Bulletin newspaper enlisted the aid of United Airlines and organized a food drop in Tahoe City.

Locals built a huge bonfire in the middle of the Tahoe City golf course and that night an airplane dropped a half dozen boxes of bread, meat and vegetables.

Although no one was starving, or even hungry, the fresh food was distributed around the community and gratefully enjoyed by all.

Powerful and unrelenting storms in the Sierra during the winter of 1951-52 generated plenty of news.

Best remembered is the three-day entrapment of a Southern Pacific passenger train at Yuba Gap west of Donner Summit, but Lake Tahoe residents endured their fair share of the exceptional snowfall. On Christmas Eve hundreds of visitors were marooned when heavy snow closed many mountain roads.

By New Year's Eve, the snowpack was six and a half feet deep in Tahoe and growing.

Telephone lines were down and avalanches had taken out the power lines plunging the community into darkness.

On Tahoe's North Shore, drifts 15 to 20 feet deep buried Highway 28.

Several pregnant women were relying on nurse Audrey Welch for their prenatal care.

Since the road was closed, Nurse Welch got on her skis to reach her patients on both sides of the state line.

At the Sky Tavern ski resort on the Mount Rose highway, 70 people, including baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, were marooned by 20-foot drifts for four days.

When a rotary snowplow finally got the road cleared, DiMaggio and the others were anxious to escape their snowbound isolation.

On their way out, DiMaggio observed plenty of skiers waiting impatiently to reach the resort.

Some of them had been sleeping in their cars for more than a day to be first on the chairlift.

The winter of 1951-52 dumped 65 feet of snow on Donner Summit and the snowpack reached 26 feet deep, the greatest depth ever recorded there. Highway 40 was blockaded by snow for one month.

So, as you can see, this last storm wasn't that bad.