California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
Mother Nature just can’t make up her mind whether or not to bless California.
According to the manual snow survey conducted by the Department of Water Resources Friday, the state’s “frozen reservoir” is 85 percent of normal for this time of year.
The third such survey of the season at Phillips Station recorded 34 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 13.5 inches, which is 58 percent of average for this location.
This winter has been marked by a series of extremes, as unseasonably dry and warm conditions have been interrupted by powerful storms that temporarily boosted the snowpack to near normal. That was certainly the case in February where multiple rounds of atmospheric rivers earlier in the month brought the statewide snowpack to near average only to have dry conditions return. Following the storms in the middle of February, the statewide snowpack was 97 percent of average and has since fallen to 85 percent. For every day that it’s not snowing, the averages will continue to drop.
“In addition to the large swings in snowpack conditions we’ve seen this year, a big regional disparity remains between the Northern, Central, and Southern Sierra Nevada,” said Andy Reising, manager of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit. “With so many of this season’s storms missing the southern half of the state, our statewide snowpack average can mask just how below average some regions are. Water managers will need to consider not just the extreme swings through the winter and spring months, but also the big differences from watershed to watershed.”
DWR’s electronic readings from 130 stations placed throughout the Sierra Nevada indicate that the statewide snowpack’s snow water equivalent is 19.2 inches, or 74 percent of the critical April 1 average, which is when the snowpack usually peaks.
The next survey is tentatively scheduled for April 1.
