Sierra Snow Survey Reveals California on the Verge of Another Critically Dry Year
The California Department of Water Resources conducted its third manual snow survey at Phillips Station near Tahoe on Tuesday, revealing what was already known – the Sierra is short of its historical snowpack average. According to water officials, unless there’s a strong series of storms coming in March and April, California is on the verge of another critically dry 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,†said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “With back-to-back dry years, water efficiency and drought preparedness are more important than ever for communities, agriculture and the environment.â€
The manual survey recorded 56 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent (SWE) of 21 inches, which is 86 percent of average for this location. The SWE measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack and is a key component of DWR’s water supply forecast.
"With below average precipitation across the state, California’s reservoirs are starting to see the impacts of a second consecutive dry year."- Sean de Guzman, Chief of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Section #snowsurvey2021 #cawater #climatechange @CAgovernor pic.twitter.com/jR3jGQHWaX
— CA – DWR (@CA_DWR) March 2, 2021
The results of the survey were a little better that in 2020, but not enough to recover the area from lack of water resources. “With below average precipitation across the state, California’s reservoirs are starting to see the impacts of a second consecutive dry year.” said Sean de Guzman, Chief of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Section
With below-average precipitation across the state, California’s reservoirs are showing the impacts of a second consecutive dry year. Lake Oroville is currently at 55 percent of average and Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface reservoir, is currently at 68 percent of average for this date.Â
Without significant precipitation in the coming months, the state could once again feel the impact of shortened water resources. Low water levels can increase wildfire danger throughout the state, a devastating result seen in the past 3 years in Northern California. Lack of water also impacts wildlife and farming resources.
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful post.
Many thanks for providing this information.
Thank you for the good writeup. It in reality
used to be a enjoyment account it. Glance complex to far brought agreeable from
you! By the way, how could we keep in touch?
Very great post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wished to say that I’ve really loved
surfing around your blog posts. After all I will be subscribing on your feed
and I hope you write again very soon!
I must thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this site.
I’m hoping to see the same high-grade blog posts by you in the
future as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities
has inspired me to get my own, personal website now 😉
hello there and thank you for your info – I’ve certainly picked up something new from right here.
I did however expertise a few technical issues using this site, since I
experienced to reload the website lots of times previous to I could get it to load properly.
I had been wondering if your hosting is OK?
Not that I am complaining, but slow loading instances times will sometimes affect your placement in google and could damage
your high-quality score if advertising and marketing with Adwords.
Anyway I am adding this RSS to my e-mail and could look out for a lot more of your respective interesting content.
Ensure that you update this again soon.
When someone writes an piece of writing he/she maintains
the idea of a user in his/her mind that how a user can be aware of it.
Thus that’s why this post is great. Thanks!