Latest storms should help lift snowpack above 70%

A series of precipitation-producing storms continue to contribute to the abundance of new snow to the Sierra and officials hope to see Northern California to catch up soon from the slow start to winter and remnants from a dry 2020. Last week, state water officials made their second trek to the Sierra to measure the latest snowpack, which showed great improvement and hopes that more is on the way. Statewide, the water content of the snowpack was 70 percent of average to date, said Sean de Guzman, chief of the Department of Water Resources' snow surveys and water supply forecasting section. The water supply outlook is much better "but we're still nowhere near out of the woods," de Guzman said in a press conference at Phillips Station, a measuring site south of Lake Tahoe. The Sierra snowpack typically supplies about 30 percent of California's water needs when spring comes and it begins to melt, eventually running off into aqueducts and reservoirs. "The state has experienced a series of storms over the last couple of weeks that brought a significant amount of rain and snow. However, these storms were not nearly enough to make up a deficit that we have accumulated over the last few months," de Guzman said. The Department of Water Resources determines snow depth and water content through a network of hundreds of automated sensors and by having crews make measurements by hand. A manual measurement at Phillips Station found 63 inches of snow and a water content of 17 inches, which was 93 percent of average to date and 68 percent of the average on April 1, when the Sierra snowpack is typically deepest and has the highest water content. The current water content of the overall snowpack is 45 percent of the April 1 average. Precipitation statewide during October, November and December was only 39 percent of average as weather was influenced by a La Nina condition in the Pacific Ocean that is marked by below-average sea surface temperatures. The water content of the snowpack statewide was only about half of average on Dec. 30. During a typical La Nina year, a ridge of high pressure builds up off the West Coast and pushes many storms into the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, de Guzman said. Some of those storms make landfall in California but only in the northernmost areas, leading to better snow conditions in the northern Sierra than in the southern section of the 400-mile-long (644-kilometer) mountain range. De Guzman said it would take multiple days of above-average precipitation to make up for the dry early months but he held out hope. "As California continues to experience what appears to be a second straight year of below average rain and snow, remember that February is still one of our three wettest months of the year and that could really help us make up a lot of that deficit," said de Guzman. As of this week, water levels at Folsom Lake continue to remain low, as levels rise once runoff increases from the melting snowpack. Folsom Lake's capacity is 977,000 acre feet and the lake currently sits at 296,256 acre feet, which translates into being at just 30 percent of capacity and 57 percent of normal for this time of year. Current inflow is 992 cubic feet per second while outflow is 1,233 cubic feet per second. While more precipitation is on the way, officials stress the importance of using water wisely in the months ahead in an effort to recover from the early dry months.