With California snowpack below average, approaching storms bring hope
SODA SPRINGS -- On Saturday, stormy, near-whiteout conditions in parts of the Sierra were a welcome sight to Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab.
"It's very snowy right now. Very heavy snowfall rates coming down," he said. "This one is looking like it could be a dent – not going to be a huge dent in the low snow conditions but, if we can have several other storms like it looks like we might, then it should end up helping at least a little bit."
There hasn't been a lot of snowfall, to date, in the Sierra this season. Earlier this week, the California Department of Water Resources conducted its first snow survey of the year and the results were underwhelming.
"We recorded a snow depth of 7 1/2 inches and a snow water content of 3 inches. That represents 30% of average, to date," said Sean de Guzman with the DWR.
For context, this time a year ago, the snowpack measured in at 185% of average.
"It wasn't necessarily surprising but it still is a little bit concerning. But, we still have time to recover from that," Schwartz said.
Professor Jay Lund, the vice director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis, has taught water management for more than 30 years. He said this year's slow start, despite last year's record-setting snowfall, isn't all that surprising.
"This is almost par for the course for California and it's becoming more so with climate change," he said. "Most of the climate change projections show California having more extreme events and fewer average years into the future."
While it would be premature to project this will be a dry year, Lund doesn't think it will be an above-average wet year.
"What we could probably say at this point is that it's going to be very difficult for this year to be very wet," he said.
Although the snowpack, which is California's largest natural reservoir, is well below average, statewide reservoir storage is currently at 116% of average, according to numbers from the DWR.
"If it's dry for the whole year, we won't really know it until March," Lund said. "But if it is dry, we'll be very glad that we started off with full reservoirs.
Time will tell how the season unfolds. Schwartz hopes there are more days like Saturday in store.
"Over the next four to six weeks, I think that picture will kind of become more clear. Hopefully, it's for the better, more wet than more dry," he said. "Our snowiest and wettest months throughout the state are typically December through February. We're only one month into that period. We've had years that have started slow and below average or close to average that have wound up way above average. So, it's still a little bit early to really make a call whether we're going to be wet or dry."
