State’s Retiring Snow Guru Talks Snowpack Tech And California Water

Frank Gehrke says that back in Missouri, where he was raised, snow was “something to be plowed.” He would soon take a very different view. In December, Gehrke retired as chief snow surveyor for the California Department of Water Resources. He spent much of his 31 years with the department on skis and snowshoes, in remote corners of the Sierra Nevada, measuring the “frozen reservoir” that ultimately provides about a third of California’s water supply