First snow survey: more than last year

The first snow survey of the Sierra Nevada snow pack this winter found more snow than last year at this time, but not enough to impact the California drought.

The Department of Water Resources conducted the survey Tuesday about 90 miles east of Sacramento.

Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, said there were 21.6 inches of snow on the ground.

Following recent storms, he said, their survey found more snow in the mountains than last year at this time, but the water content is still far below average for the date.

Says Gehrke, “4 inches of water content and that’s 33 percent of its long term average and a little better than we had last year. Last year, at this point we had 2 point 3 inches of water content, so slightly better, but still way low from what we should have.”

Even with December being a wet month for California, the storms were warmer than needed to create greater than average snowfall in the Sierra Nevada. After three straight years of below-average snow and rainfall, surface and groundwater reservoirs are depleted. That isn’t likely to change unless rain and snow this year are above historical averages.

California’s snow pack supplies about a third of the water needed by state residents, agriculture and industry as it melts in the late spring and summer.

The state Department of Water Resources is slated to do the winter’s first manual measurement of the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada.

Abundant snowfall in the mountains would be an important part of ending one of the worst droughts in more than a century of record keeping.