Recent rain, snow leaves experts cautiously optimistic about drought relief
Snow flurries are falling in Oak Glen and that means business.
It's the reason Annie's Restaurant and Bakery decide to open up shop this Monday after the New Year Holiday.
"Just huge, big, fat, beautiful snowflakes," said employee Tina Chase. "And as soon as everyone hears there's snow in the area, we get overwhelmed."
And it's not just the owners of Oak Tree Mountain that have noticed more snow this year than in recent memory.
"Especially the last four years being in a drought, it's been a lot," said Richard Campbell.
Even scientists are surprised by the recent snow and rainfall to start this winter.
"As far as a start to winter goes, this is probably the sixth best start in the last two decades dating back to 2000," said Dr. Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist and manager of the University of California-Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory.
Schwartz has kept tabs on the snowpack across the state. Despite the water running off our local mountains, Schwartz cautioned against believing that California is out of the drought.
"It's January, we're still very, very excited about these storms rolling through but it's going to be March or April before we can start making determinations about our drought and whether or not we can ease off our water conservation," he said.
For perspective, Schwartz said that we had an impressive snowpack last January as well, but it was followed by three very dry months. While we should be cautiously optimistic about getting real relief from the drought, he said there are some early signs that California would fare better this year.
"The Southern Sierra has awesome snowpack which we didn't have last year," he said. "And also the fact that we're seeing the storm cycle continue — we're going to keep seeing storms come through the area whereas last year, January through March the faucet kind of shut off."
The last time that California closed the winter season with above-average snowpack was in 2019.
While the drought relief may not come, in the meantime, the mountain towns are more than happy to welcome people chasing the snow.
"It's supposed to snow again tonight at about 2 or 3 a.m. so it will be white again and beautiful," said Chase.
