WATER OFFICIALS: CALIFORNIA LIKELY TO SEE DRY YEAR
California will likely face a critically dry year with much less runoff from the Sierra Nevada snowpack than normal and reservoirs that already are showing the impact of winter precipitation that is well below average, state water authorities said Tuesday.
The state Department of Water Resources’ latest survey from a network of elecary tronic stations found that the water content of the overall snowpack was 61 percent of the historical March 2 average and 54 percent of the average on April 1, when it is historically at its maximum.
Surveys of the Sierra snowpack, which normally supplies about 30 percent of California’s water, are a key element of the department’s water supply forecast. December, January and Februare typically the wettest part of the so-called “water year,” which starts on Oct. 1 each year.
“As California closes out the fifth consecutive dry month of our water year, absent a series of strong storms in March or April we are going to end with a critically dry year on the heels of last year’s dry conditions,” Karla Nemeth, the department’s director, said in a statement.
Department chief Sean De Guzman manually surveyed an area at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe, where measurements date to 1941. He found a snow depth of 56 inches and a “snow water content” of 21 inches, translating to a water content 86 percent of average to date and 83 percent of the April 1 average.