Captial Public Radio, an NPR station from Sacramento, is reporting that the Sierra Nevada snowpack’s water content is only 40% of normal to date.
Unofficial has a phone meeting with the UC Berkeley Snow Laboratory tomorrow. We’ll be gathering where this year stands as far as precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth compared with average.
CAPITAL PUBLIC RADIO ARTICLE:
“It’s been a dry winter. And the last snow survey of the year finds California’s already-reduced mountain snowpack is melting steadily. The snowpack water content is only 40 percent of normal for this time of year.
About a third of the state relies on mountain snowpack for its water supply.
December and January were exceptionally dry. So even with some recent snowstorms in the Sierra, John King of the Department of Water Resources says the snowpack never reached its normal volume:
KING: “We’ve been off the mark since the beginning of the season, and it’s been really difficult to make it up. Snow is melting and we’re at conditions that are well below normal.”
Still, the Department of Water Resources expects to be able to allocate 60 percent of the water requested this year by districts. That’s because an abnormally wet season last year has kept many reservoirs fairly full. This water goes to more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland.” – Kathleen Masterson of Capital Public Radio
