Snowpack up 160% in ‘good start’ to 2022
After two consecutive years of drought, the state Department of Water Resources conducted the season’s first manual survey of the snowpack Dec. 30 and found a promising result—deep snow totaling 160% of average for the time of year.
State Climatologist Michael Anderson said storms in December that dumped several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada and brought much-needed precipitation were “a great start to the water year.”
“December came in exactly the way we would’ve wanted it to,” he said, “just a parade of storms building a good start to the snowpack and getting water on the ground.”
Heading into what typically is the season’s key period for precipitation, the measurement was welcome news for California farmers and ranchers, who faced severe water cutbacks in 2021 due to historic drought conditions. The early series of snow and rainstorms left some hopeful for more plentiful water supplies for 2022.
“We just got quite a bit of snow here. This is the Christmas gift everybody wanted in February of last year, but we’re thrilled to have it,” said Siskiyou County farmer Scott Seus of Tulelake. “It gives us some potential for a reasonable water year.”
He added, “We’ve still got a long way to go.”
The season’s first snow survey measures water content in the snowpack, which supplies a third of the state’s water supply. The measurement was recorded at the Phillips Station snow course, one of more than 260 snow courses across the Sierra Nevada that DWR manually or electronically measures each winter and early spring.
DWR recorded 78.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 20 inches, which is 202% of average for the location. The snow water equivalent measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack and helps forecast the amount of water that will melt and drain into state reservoirs.
Lake Shasta north of Redding, the largest reservoir in the federal Central Valley Project, now stands at about 50% of average storage. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the principal State Water Project reservoir, has about 74% of its historical average for the date, while San Luis Reservoir, a critical south-of-delta holding facility for both the SWP and CVP, remains at 49% of average.
California received a welcome storm in October, followed by dry conditions during November. Mother Nature surprised the state in December, with a high-pressure system over the Pacific Ocean that brought a parade of cold, atmospheric river storms. The series of systems dropped snow in the high elevations and led to white-out conditions that closed major highways. Cold temperatures also brought frost concerns to the valley.
“California has the most variable year-toyear climate in the U.S. Within a year, we can go from really wet to really dry,” Anderson said. “We’ve already seen that this water year, with that late-October storm that was just huge in Northern California mostly, but then November went dry.”