Ron Caetano is packed and ready to go. His family photos and valuables are in the trailer and he’s put food in carry totes. He moved the rabbits and chickens and their automatic feeders to higher ground.
Just west of this normally dusty prison town, a civic nightmare is unfolding: Tulare Lake, a body of water that did not exist just two months ago, now stretches to the horizon — a vast, murky sea in which the tops of telephone poles can be seen stretching eerily into the distance.
It was the snowpack reading that spawned a hundred headlines. “California ties 1952 record for all-time Sierra snowpack,” proclaimed KTVU. “California’s snowpack soars to record high after 17 atmospheric rivers,” trumpeted the Washington Post.
State officials largely seemed to agree.
Molly White, Water Operations Manager for the State Water Project at the California Department of Water Resources, said atmospheric river storms have to led to near-record snowpack in many parts of the Sierra Nevada and reservoir storage is above average for this time of year.
Following three consecutive years of drought in California, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is one of the most bountiful in more than 40 years. While the record snowpack and snow water equivalent is great news for water supply, there are concerns the record snowpack could create flooding issues.
California has one of the most complex water systems in the world. And so, the factors giving rise to our region’s floods are more complicated than the simple cascading of rain and snowmelt downhill during a rainier-than-average wet season.
We are well into one of the wettest winters on record in the San Joaquin Valley. Historic precipitation levels have buried the high Sierra Nevada under more than 50 total feet of snow. And parts of the Valley, stricken for years by severe drought, are underwater.
A cold low pressure system spinning off the coast of California sent bands of rain and snow across the state Wednesday, making travel difficult and adding to an epic mountain snowpack.
Forecasters said the storm was not as strong as the systems that pounded the state all winter, but that chains were required for vehicles on highways through the Sierra Nevada. A section of U.S. 395 on the eastern side of the range was closed due to snowfall.
In California, the snowpack is at some of the highest levels in recorded history.
The state’s snowpack accumulates in the Sierra Nevada—a mountain range that stretches for 400 miles from Northern California southward to the Great Basin. The snowpack, which melts into the state’s reservoirs, provides about a third of California’s total water supply.
Since the beginning of 2023, California has seen a record-setting amount of snow across the state, especially in the Sierra Nevada, setting up the state to close in on the records for the highest snow water equivalent, which was reached just over a decade ago.
Snow water equivalent is the amount of water that would result from melting the snowpack, according to the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
