Truckee was named after the Paiute chief. The chief's real name was not Truckee, it was Winnemuca. The first people who came to cross the Sierra Nevadas encountered his tribe. The people who found them were on a hill. Chief Winnemuca rode toward them yelling "Tro-kay!," which is Paiute for "hello." The settlers assumed he was yelling his name.
Truckee has an average of 198.3 inches of snow annually. The most snow in one month was 113.0 inches in December 1992. The maximum 24-hour snowfall was 34.0 inches on February 17, 1990.
