Last week, state regulators released their initial findings for potential dam and reservoir projects that could receive funds from Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond passed by voters in 2014 in response to California’s record drought. The bond was approved with the promise of at least $2.7 billion for increased water storage but based on what was released last week, none of the projects that applied met the criteria for this money. Water agencies were alarmed when the results were released and many were caught off guard.

This Thursday, a crew from the California Department of Water Resources will drive up to a meadow above Lake Tahoe to measure how much snow is there. Media will be on hand to record the ritual, staged once a month between early January and May. The assembled reporters and camera-people will hear DWR’s official pronouncement on the State of the Snowpack — the snowpack and the moisture it contains being a key indicator of what kind of statewide water situation we’re looking at in coming months.

Floods likely will surge more often across northern California, as wintertime temperatures rise in the Sierra Nevada and snow shifts to rain, scientists predict. When precipitation falls as snow, the water stays longer on the mountain as snowpack, then slowly flows out as snowmelt over the spring and summer. The ground has more time to absorb it, said Nevada Irrigation District Watershed Resources Planner Neysa King.

Seven years into Jerry Brown’s final tour as governor, his promise to create a reliable water delivery system that protects the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is in shambles. His twin-tunnel fixation was ill-conceived and, for Northern California at least, unacceptable, and he is not giving up.