The Sierra Nevada snowpack remains almost 30 percent below average for this time of year despite a boost from the weekend storm, state water officials reported Tuesday, as agencies begin snow surveys by hand throughout the mountain range. Electronic measurements show the snowpack’s statewide water content at 10.5 inches, which is 72 percent of normal for Tuesday. Staff at the California Department of Water Resources and other state, federal or private agencies will snowshoe or walk to about 20 key monitoring stations throughout the Sierra over a 10-day period starting this week for the first manual snow survey of the 2016-17 winter.

Thanks to a series of rain storms, water is once again flowing from a dam into Lake Elsinore after years of drying up.
Peggy Cockerill made her morning walk around the lake and noticed something she’d never seen before – the flow of water back into Lake Elsinore. “I’m hoping it’s coming back,” she said. “I have been visiting my daughter here for over three years and this is the first time I’ve seen water.” It’s the first time water has flowed into the lake since 2011.

Sen. Barbara Boxer was almost out the door of the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago when she broke ranks with Dianne Feinstein, her fellow Democrat and Capitol Hill colleague, on a massive water-projects bill that included key provisions for California. Boxer echoed environmental groups and backed Bay Area interests in opposing the bill, calling it a “last-minute backroom deal” that would destroy the Endangered Species Act and benefit “big agribusiness.” She lost the battle.