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The first blue moon total solar eclipse seen in almost 152 years will occur on Wednesday, January 31 and the public is invited to a free viewing party at the Jack C. Davis Observatory in Carson City.

To catch this once in a lifetime event you'll have to get up early though as the observatory on the Western Nevada College will open at 3:15 a.m. Viewing will be available until 7:00 a.m.

January is a busy month for the Jack C. Davis Observatory.

The first blue moon total lunar eclipse in 150 years. A Western Nevada College grad returning to campus to give a lecture on Stellar Archaeology. Separating facts and fiction about Atlantis.

Saturday, Jan. 13: Mike Thomas Lecture on Atlantis

A Winter Weather Advisory is up for Lake Tahoe until 1:00 p.m. Snow overnight and this morning have left for slight conditions and road controls, so use caution as you drive in the area. There is still a 40 percent chance of lingering snow showers this evening.

Road information at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday

Chains Required, All Vehicles Except 4-Wheel Drive with Snow Tires - on US-50 from mile post 52.1 in El Dorado County to mile post 70.6 in El Dorado County in California (Pollock Pines to Meyers).

The powerful images of climate change, the catastrophic scenes of ice shelves collapsing and the rare fresh water lake system they leave behind will be the focus of the next U.C. Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) presentation on November 9 in Incline Village.

Epishelf lakes, the rare lake system where freshwater overlies seawater, have been researched by Assistant Professor Dr. Alex Forrest and his team in the remote Canadian Arctic.

Peter McDonough won the 2016 Word Wave One-Act Play Competition with "Joint Chiefs" and he has now expanded it into a full-length stage production that will be featured at the Lake Tahoe Community College's Duke Theatre over two weekends in November.

California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has ongoing projects in El Dorado County and the Lake Tahoe Basin. Here is what they are working on this week:

LONG-TERM PROJECTS

During their first summer of sales, 39 of the 46 available contracts to buy a luxury condominium home at the Tahoe Beach Club sold for a total of $85 million.

This development at the end of Kahle Drive in Stateline, Nevada is the first full ownership lakefront in 30 years at Lake Tahoe. They are being built on land that was once a trailer park.

Homebuyers have been mostly from the Bay Area, Southern California, Texas and New York areas.

It is always a good time to donate blood, but after the tragedy in Las Vegas overnight, there is no time like the present to give the gift of life. Hundreds are lining up in Las Vegas to donate blood, but there is also a pre-planned drive in South Lake Tahoe on Monday at Lake Tahoe Community College from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The drive is being held in the school's Aspen Room at One College Drive.

On Tuesday September 27, Choices for Children hosted an early care and education (ECE) open house. ECE students and child care providers toured and observed classrooms at the Lake Tahoe Child Development Center on Spruce Avenue in South Lake Tahoe and learned about Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS). They enjoyed pizzas donated by Primo’s Italian Bistro and decadent cupcakes donated by Cake by Grace.

Choices for Children would like to express a special thank you to Jim and Grace for their generous donation. It was very much appreciated and made the evening lovely.

The following is the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) roadwork schedule for the Lake Tahoe area.

EMERGENCY PROJECTS

U.S. Highway 50 (El Dorado County) from Forest Road to the El Dorado Ditch in Fresh Pond: Westbound motorists can expect #2 lane closed for pavement repair. Completion is expected by the end of October.

U.S. Highway 50 (El Dorado County): The highway is reduced to one lane in each direction at Bridal Veil Falls for slope and roadway repair work. Completion is expected by the end of this year.

LONG-TERM PROJECTS

Hundreds of plants grown under the green thumbs of UCCE Master Gardners of Lake Tahoe were sold Saturday morning during their annual plant sale.

Normally held in the spring, this year's event was moved to the fall due to a delayed start to the growing season due to the long winter we saw in the Sierra. The community apparently was ready for the sale as a long line of gardeners were already waiting when the doors opened at Sierra House Elementary.

A bonus this year were tours of the Sierra House Grow Domes as well as a Yard Art sale of the student's crafts.

Around two dozen runners and walkers remembered the victims of a mass shooting in Carson City that happened six years ago Wednesday in which five people died, including three Nevada National Guardsmen.

On Sept. 6, 2011, Nevada Guardsmen Lt. Col. Heath Kelly, 35, Master Sgt. Christian Riege, 38, and Sgt. 1st Class Miranda McElhiney, 31, were killed in a shooting at the south Carson City International House of Pancakes. Florence Donovan-Gunderson, 67, of South Lake Tahoe, was also killed and her husband injured. The shooter, a man suffering from mental illness, turned the gun on himself.

Bill Morgan, who once headed up both Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and U.S. Forest Service in Lake Tahoe, will share 30 years of intriguing stories of what happened in Lake Tahoe from 1965-1989 at the August 24 U.C Davis TERC talk in Incline Village.

In Bill Morgan's book, Morgan's Tahoe, he talks of those turbulent times in Tahoe's history. With his jobs he was caught up in the turbulence himself. His firsthand knowledge of those happenings has given him a unique perspective of Tahoe in those days. Most of these tales are little known by any except those who were involved themselves.

Kingsbury Middle School has fallen out of escrow after the buyer, Lake Parkway LLC, failed to secure financing on the $3.15M purchase by the required date of July 31.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - As Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) opens up their annual Intensive Spanish Summer Institute (ISSI) on Monday, July 31, a special guest will be there as part of the opening ceremony.

Selene Barceló, Consul for Community Affairs at the Consulate General of Mexico in Sacramento, will speak at several of the institute's activities starting at 7:45 a.m. with the opening session at the plaza outside the campus's Roberta Mason Library.

At 9:00 a.m. she moves to the Duke Theatre where she'll make a presentation in Spanish and then in English at 10:00 a.m.

A special meeting of the Douglas County School Board will be held on Monday, July 24 at 4:30 p.m. to discuss, review and vote on one of two options surrounding the sale of Kingsbury Middle School.

The district closed the school during the 2008-2009 school year due to declining enrollment. Zephyr Cove Elementary School and Whittell High School adjusted the grades the serve to absorb the middle school students. The district put the school building and property on the market in 2012 and it has now been vacant for over eight years.

The following is a list of Caltrans projects at Lake Tahoe for the week.

EMERGENCY PROJECTS

U.S. Highway 50 (El Dorado County): The highway is reduced to one lane in each direction at Bridal Veil Falls for slope repair work.

State Route 193 (El Dorado County): Motorists can expect signalized one-way traffic control about 1 mile north of the junction with State Route 49 in Placerville around the clock for slope repair work.

LONG-TERM PROJECTS

Another reminder to not drink and drive in South Lake Tahoe will be on Saturday, July 15 when the the California Highway Patrol (CHP) conducts a sobriety checkpoint.

CHP has said they will be operating the checkpoint between 9:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. "somewhere in the east area of El Dorado County." This could be Meyers, South Lake Tahoe or Tahoma.

A 41-year-old male died in Lake Tahoe Tuesday afternoon after he fell off a kayak near Beach Drive in the Tahoe Keys.

The victim's wife saw him fall in when the man was overtaken by cold water at about 3:30 p.m.

The unidentified man was brought into the shore where CPR was initiated. Emergency crews were on the scene and the man was transported to Barton.

He was not wearing a life jacket.

This is a developing story and no other details are available at this time.

Join U.C. Davis at their Incline Village Tahoe Environmental Research Center on Tuesday, June 27 and learn about how sharks sturgeon, trout and other species are tagged with acoustic transmitters for research.

The snow is melting, water is flowing, and wildfire fuels are growing. Despite all the moisture, the wildfire threat remains a concern. Preparing your home and community now is more important than ever. June is “Wildfire Awareness Month” in the Lake Tahoe Basin, and members of the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team are continuing last year’s campaign by asking all Tahoe residents and visitors to “Think First to Keep Tahoe Fire Safe”.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The annual Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) Student Art Exhibition will be kicked off with a reception on Sunday, May 21 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the school's Commons. The public is invited to the free reception and there will be live music and refreshments.

This month-long art show is always a hit. Approximately 400 works of student art will be on display from digital art and printmaking to sculpture, a culmination of students' creations over the past year.

The public is invited to a budget meeting of the South Tahoe Public Utility District (STPUD) Board of Directors on Thursday, May 4 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the STPUD board room at 1275 Meadow Crest Drive in South Lake Tahoe.

The purpose of the meeting is to review the proposed 2017-18 budget and ten-year financial and capital improvement plan for the District.

Imagine a world with no frogs. No longer would you hear frog melodies in the evening, algae would flourish, and entire ecosystems could change dramatically. This is a possibility in the Sierra Nevada because 90 percent of the Mountain yellow-legged frogs have been disappearing due to an amphibian pathogen and loss of habitat from fish introductions in our lakes.