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Snowpack in California’s mountains is near average for this time of year, after a recent series of storms provided a much-needed boost to the region, officials reported Thursday.
First manual of the seasonsnow surveyrecorded 24 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent (the amount of water contained in snow) of 9 inches, according to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). That amount of water is 91 percent of the average for that location, Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada, the agency said.
Statewide, automated sensors collecting data from 130 Sierra Nevada stations indicated a snowpack equivalent of 10.7 inches, or 108 percent of the average for that date.
By way of comparison, that number was 28 percent of the average at this time last year, officials said.
“We feel good today, but we need to see more storms coming,” Andy Reising, manager of the agency’s snow surveys, said during aLive stream of Thursday’s event.
Reising warned that despite the large storms that have flooded the region in the past two months, a La Niña weather system has the potential to bring drier conditions, especially in the southern part of the state.
He also noted that in 2022, snowpack was 154 percent of average at this point in the season, but dry conditions left the region at just 46 percent of average on April 1 , the end of the final snow survey of the year.
“We’re going to need a progression of monthly storms to continue, because otherwise we might end up similar, below average by the end of the year,” Reising said.
DWR Director Karla Nemeth echoed those sentiments, stressing in a statement that “while our snowpack looks good now, we have a long way to go until April when our of water supply will be more complete”.
“The extreme swings between dry and wet conditions continue this winter and if the past few years are any indication, anything could happen between now and April and we need to be prepared,” Nemeth added.
