A weekend spring storm that drenched the San Francisco Bay area and closed Northern California mountain highways also set a single-day snowfall record for the season on Sunday in the Sierra Nevada.
The wet weather system had mostly moved out of the state by Sunday morning, but officials warned that roads would remain slick after around two feet (60 centimeters) of snow fell in some areas of the Sierra.
Southern California has seen record rainfall lately, and there’s a healthy snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. But in spite of all the rain and snow, many local consumers can expect to see higher water bills next year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has a new sales pitch for a tunnel to move more water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that past governors have tried and failed to build for five decades.
Californians don’t have to worry too much about drought for the foreseeable future.
The state’s Department of Water Resources said Tuesday’s snowpack survey revealed the snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains is above average at roughly 113%.
The Sierra Nevada was so bereft of snow in December that skiers and farmersalike worried that a disappointing winter was sure to give way to a drought-ridden spring and summer.
March is a notoriously fickle month for California precipitation, but the storm door remains open for the Golden State, where precipitation has been plentiful for a second straight year. The month began with a severe blizzard, and it looks like it will close with a solid dose of Sierra snow — and a potentially significant rainstorm in Southern California.
A powerful storm expected to hit California starting Thursday could bring the strongest blizzard of the winter for the Sierra Nevada, potentially dumping 5 to 12 feet of snow at elevations 5,000 feet above sea level.
With its Mediterranean climate, California receives most of its annual precipitation in just a few months, with the bulk of it falling from December to February.
Weeks of heavy rain and snowfall in California have given experts “cautious optimism” about the state’s water year and a snowpack to help boost water reserves recovering from years of drought.
At the dawn of the new year in 1997, the Truckee River transformed. The winter season had thus far been great for snow, but when a subtropical storm from near the Hawaiian Islands rolled in, it carried with it unseasonably warm rain. The warm rainfall combined with snowmelt to swell the rivers, with the Truckee burying much of downtown Reno under water.
