Sierra Snowpack Archives

Parts of the West Have Double the Normal Snowpack. Experts Say it’s Too Early to Get Excited

December 6, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /CNNby Jennifer Gray

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas across the West, and for the parched mega-drought region, the December snow is a welcome gift. With back-to-back-to-back winter storms across the West, the snowpack is thriving. Parts of the Sierra and the Pacific Northwest are seeing above-average snowpack for this time of year. In Central California, the Sierra stands at 200% of normal for snowpack average to date.

Full Story

Sierra Snowpack is Exceptional, but Last Year’s Memories Haunt California

December 6, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /GV Wireby Bill McEwen

The Sierra snowpack vital to supplying water for California’s residents, businesses, and farms is off to a strong start. Recent storms bringing rain to the Valley and other parts of the state are also dumping snow on the Sierra Nevada. According to the state Department of Water Resources, the northern Sierra snowpack is 155% of normal through Monday. Meanwhile, the central Sierra and southern Sierra snowpacks are 166% and 216% of normal, respectively.

Full Story

Sierra Snowpack ‘Well Below Average’ in Third Official Survey, Signaling Continued Drought

March 2, 2022/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Times of San Diegoby Chris Jennewein

California’s vital Sierra snowpack has fallen “well below average” in the third official measurement of the season, signaling another year of drought is ahead.

That was the conclusion after the Department of Water Resources conducted the third snow survey of the season Tuesday at Phillips Station west of Lake Tahoe.

Following the driest January and February in state history, the manual survey recorded 35 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 16 inches, which is 68% of average for this location in March.

Full Story

La Niña Expected Through Spring, Brings Uncertainty to Sierra Snowpack

February 17, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /FOX40by Dennis Shanahan and Jonathan Taraya

The recent dry weather in Northern California might be sticking around for a while.

The Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 77% chance La Niña conditions will continue through the month of May.

The term La Niña refers to a correlation between ocean water temperatures and winter weather patterns.

Oftentimes, the weather event brings wetter than normal conditions to the Pacific Northwest and drier weather to Southern California.

Full Story

Where California’s Key Reservoirs Stand After the 2nd Driest January Ever

February 14, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /SF GATEby Amy Graff

California hasn’t seen rain in over a month, and some of the state’s key reservoirs are starting to be impacted.

Shasta Lake, the state’s largest reservoir, was at 54% of its historical average as of Feb. 9, compared to 72% last year, the California Department of Water Resources said. San Luis Reservoir on the eastern slope of the Diablo range is at 59% of its historical average, compared to 71% last year.

Other reservoirs are up from where they were at this time last year.

“This would be expected given that last year was the 2nd driest year for CA in our observed record and the 2020-2021 two year period set a new record for dryness,” Michael Anderson, the state climatologist for the Department of Water Resources, wrote in an email.

Full Story

Rainy Week on Tap for the Bay Area; Sierra Snow to Complicate Holiday Mountain Travel

December 20, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /The Mercury Newsby Jakob Rodgers

A one-two punch of storm systems is expected to drape the Bay Area in rainy weather for much of the upcoming week while potentially making holiday travel in the Sierra Nevada mountains “very challenging to impossible,” meteorologists say.

Full Story

California Snow Drought Ends in Dramatic Fashion, While Other States Still Deal with Shortage

December 19, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /CNNby Allison Chinchar

Thanks to multiple atmospheric river events, average snowpack in California has gone from 18% to 98% in just two weeks.

“Increases in snowpack of this size are not common, but also not unprecedented,” Julie Kalansky, deputy director of operations for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E), explained.

Kalansky pointed out previous studies have shown a jump on this scale can happen about twice every three years, but usually over the course of an entire winter, not just the month of December. While they don’t have the exact rankings for each month of the year, “most of the storm events in the study we referenced for the above calculation were in the second half of December and later into the season,” Kalansky added.

The sudden change gives California its wettest start to the Water Year in more than 40 years, thanks to several drought-denting rain and snow systems pushing through the area in recent weeks. The Water Year runs from October 1 through September 30 of the following year.

Full Story

Despite Rainfall, State Still Aiming for 55 Gallon Per Person Water Conservation Target

February 2, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /GV Wireby Jim Jakobs

Fresh off a week filled with rain and snow due to an atmospheric river, water conservation may not be top of mind for everyday Californians.

NBC Bay Area Meteorologist Rob Mayeda just broke down some figures from this latest storm. In a Friday tweet he says, “Sierra Snowpack Surge: Up to 66% of average from just 40% one week ago. Biggest rains for the Central and Southern Sierra.”

While the recent precipitation may make the 2011-2017 California drought seem like a distant memory, a couple of laws passed by the legislature at that time are set to rain down policy on water agencies throughout the state.

Starting in November of 2023, California will enact a statewide indoor water use standard of 55 gallons per person per day. Local water agencies could be fined $10,000 a day by the state if they fail to meet the standard.

Full Story

Snow-Water Equivalent Still Down Despite Recent Storms

May 20, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Enterprise Recordby Jake Hutchison

Though the last couple of weekends have seen wet weather, it hasn’t been enough to keep up with the yearly average in time for summer in California. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which is tested regularly by employees of the California Department of Water Resources, has yielded some grim results so far in 2020 in terms of snow-water equivalent.

Full Story

Opinion: A Week of Rain is Nice, but Does Virtually Nothing to Help L.A.’s Water Issues

March 11, 2020/in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /Los Angeles Times by The Times Editorial Board

Southern California’s March rain is a welcome relief, coming as it does after a mostly dry January and an absolutely desiccated February. Los Angeles, like much of the rest of the state, had been in drought and was getting by without severe conservation measures only because of reservoirs still brimming from the soaking winter of 2017 and a succession of moderately wet follow-ups.

We have a name for late winter storms that come at the end of mostly failed rainy seasons. We call them March Miracles. The granddaddy of them all came in 1991, when California was facing a desperate water shortage only to be hit by a late-March Sierra blizzard that packed a whole season’s worth of moisture into three days.

Full Story

Posts