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.