California snowpack at 136 percent of normal

He came there with members of the California California Department of Water Resources’ Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, who had gone there to conduct their annual by-hand measurement of the snow depth there. Together with the next worse measure, “extreme drought”, the land under the two categories covers 69% of state. At nearby Lyons Creek, snow was 58 inches deep, or 120 percent of average.

FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this post said the amount of snow found on the ground in the manual survey was 6 inches above average; it was 16 inches above average. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s (SWP) principal reservoir, now holds 1 million acre feet (MAF), 29 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity and 47 percent of its historical average on December 30.

“We’re optimistic that California’s water supply will get a boost this year, but we aren’t there yet”, said Terry Erlewine, general manager of the State Water Contractors.

The readings are more than twice the readings from one year ago at those same sites.

The water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack was measured at above normal levels Wednesday when officials took the winter’s first manual survey – but the effect on the drought remains unclear.

Californias water year begins on October 1 and ends on the following September 30.

By comparison, the snowpack was just 20 percent of normal on December 30, 2013, and 50 percent of normal on December 30, 2014. “If we believe the forecasts, then El Niño is supposed to kick in as we move through the rest of the winter. Storage in Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface reservoir, is 51 percent of its December 30 average. Melting snowpack feeds into key reservoirs, which hold water that is eventually released through the State Water Project to Central and Southern California cities.

His measurements confirmed data gathered earlier in the month by electronic snow sensors showing that the snowpack, which provides a third of the state’s water when it melts in the spring, was above normal for the first time in three years.

The next series of El Niño-fueled storms is expected to bring light rain to at least the Central Coast Monday or Tuesday, said Diana Henderson, a forecaster with the Weather Service’s forecast office for the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey. The Salinas area could receive more than an inch of rain over as 36-hour period, based on the latest weather models, Borgioli said Wednesday.