After a year of historic drought and wildfire, California will go into 2022 cold and wet, with more snow on the ground than it has had at year’s end in a decade.
State water officials, who plan to conduct the first snow survey of the winter on Thursday, are expected to find the snowpack across California’s mountains measuring close to 160% of average for the date.
A series of storms have made for an exceptionally rainy and snowy start to California’s winter season, pushing snowpack and precipitation well above 150% of normal for this time of year and bringing a welcome influx of moisture amid an ongoing drought.
After months of extreme drought that triggered water shortages and stoked wildfires, heavy snow is falling in the Sierra Nevada — enough to break decades-old records.
The Mount Rose ski area, at 8,900 feet in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe, had 116 inches of snow Tuesday, with almost 3 feet freshly fallen since the day before Christmas.
The UC Berkeley Central California Snow Lab at Donner Summit on Tuesday morning reported more than 8 inches of snow in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total for December to 202 inches, the third snowiest month on record since 1970.
The onslaught of storms that have marched into the western United States has undoubtedly created headaches for travelers and residents at times, but it has also proven to be very beneficial in building up an expansive snowpack across most mountain ranges in the region. Looking ahead to the final week of 2021, the cold and unsettled weather regime is expected to continue.
A major Christmas weekend storm caused whiteout conditions and closed key highways amid blowing snow in mountains of Northern California and Nevada, with forecasters warning that travel in the Sierra Nevada could be difficult for several days.
Authorities near Reno said three people were injured in a 20-car pileup on Interstate 395, where drivers described limited visibility on Sunday. Further west, a 70-mile (112-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 80 was shut until at least Monday from Colfax, California, through the Lake Tahoe region to the Nevada state line.
Following a sizable atmospheric river dumping rain and snow in the San Joaquin Valley and central Sierra Nevada mountain range and another on the way for Christmas, it appears that Valley communities won’t be earning any immediate extra water supplies.
Earlier this month, California’s Department of Water Resources announced that, for the first time ever, it would start the 2022 water year with a zero water allocation for water users relying on the California aqueduct and other state canal systems.
The drought is far from over in California, but this week’s atmospheric river may have begun to put a small dent in the state’s worrisome water deficit. While a prior October atmospheric event earlier in the year brought historic rainfall totals to Northern California, this most recent storm delivered drenching rains to both the north and the south and blasted the Sierra Nevada with snow.
The western United States has built their water infrastructure on a melting foundation, and unless we do something about global warming, scientists worry the consequences will be catastrophic.
When a fierce early-season storm drenched parts of Northern California last month, some experts said it was in the nick of time.
Reservoir levels were critically low. Soils were parched. Fires rampaged through dry forests.
There was general consensus among climate experts that not even the record-breaking downpour would end the two-year drought plaguing the state. There was too much of a deficit, and a single storm — even of biblical proportions — would not be able to solve it in one fell swoop.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
