NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – California Department of Water Resources (DWR) snow surveyors are likely to encounter above-normal temperatures and below-normal snowpack when they conduct their second survey of the wet season on Jan. 29.
California’s drought, now in its fourth year, is characterized by both a lack of precipitation and much warmer than normal temperatures.
Calendar year 2014 was the warmest ever in California since record-keeping began in the 1800s. The early-December storms blew in on warm weather, and the snowpack – which satisfies 30 percent of California’s water needs in normal years – is far below its average water content in late January.
DWR’s first manual survey of this season, conducted on Dec. 30 at the traditional site near Echo Summit on Highway 50 east of Sacramento, found just 4 inches of snow water equivalent, only 33 percent of average for that snow course on that date.
Statewide, the snow water equivalent was 50 percent of the multi-year average for Dec. 30.
That average has shrunk in the past month as above-normal temperatures have prevailed, not only on California’s coast and in the Central Valley but in the mountains as well.
The statewide snow water equivalent on Monday, as calculated using more than 100 sensors in the Sierra Nevada Range, is 4.3 inches, just 27 percent of normal for this date.
WATER: Winter’s second manual snow survey set for Jan. 29
- Lake County News reports
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