{"id":16671,"date":"2016-04-02T01:48:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T08:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=16671"},"modified":"2016-04-02T01:48:28","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T08:48:28","slug":"sierra-nevada-snowpack-grew-during-first-half-of-march-but-water-content-still-lags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=16671","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Nevada Snowpack Grew During First Half of March, But Water Content Still Lags"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sacramento, CA&#8230;California\u2019s statewide snowpack usually reaches its peak depth and water content each year around the first of April, after which the snow begins to melt as the sun\u2019s path across the sky moves a little further north each day. Therefore, conditions today were just about as good as they\u2019re going to get this year when the Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted its media-oriented snow survey at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada east of Sacramento.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/160944502\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/160944502\">April 2016 Snow Survey<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/calwater\">California DWR<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The same is true for the statewide snowpack, which some had expected to benefit more<br \/>\nthan it has from El Ni\u00f1o conditions. Statewide, water content of the mountain snowpack<br \/>\ntoday is only 87 percent of the March 30 historical average.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, and his<br \/>\nsurvey team measured snow that was 58.4 inches deep at Phillips with a water content<br \/>\nof 26 inches, just 97 percent of the long-term average there. The Phillips conditions for<br \/>\nthis time of year are dramatically improved compared to 2015\u2019s zero depth and zero<br \/>\nwater content on April 1. Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. stood on bare ground that day<br \/>\nwhen he mandated a 25-percent reduction in water use throughout California.<\/p>\n<p>The statewide readings also are much better compared to last year, when the water<br \/>\ncontent of the snowpack was only five percent of normal, the lowest dating back to<br \/>\n1950. Today, the statewide snowpack\u2019s water content is 24.4 inches, 87 percent of<br \/>\naverage.<\/p>\n<p>Gehrke\u2019s message to the media today was essentially the same one he delivered four<br \/>\nweeks ago at Phillips: \u201cWhile for many parts of the state there will be both significant<br \/>\ngains in both reservoir storage and stream flow, the effects of previous dry years will<br \/>\nremain for now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Electronic readings of northern Sierra Nevada snow conditions found 28.1 inches of<br \/>\nwater content (97 percent of average for March 30), 25.2 inches in the central region<br \/>\n(88 percent of average) and 19.3 inches in the southern region (72 percent of average).<br \/>\nIn normal years, the snowpack supplies about 30 percent of California\u2019s water needs as<br \/>\nit melts in the spring and early summer. The greater the snowpack water content, the<br \/>\ngreater the likelihood California\u2019s reservoirs will receive ample runoff as the snowpack<br \/>\nmelts to meet the state\u2019s water demand in the summer and fall.<br \/>\nResults of today\u2019s manual readings by DWR near Echo Summit are as follows:<br \/>\nLocation Elevation Snow<\/p>\n<p>Average<br \/>\nAlpha 7,600 feet 75.5 inches 35.5 inches 106<br \/>\nPhillips<br \/>\nStation 6,800 feet 58.4 inches 26 inches 97<\/p>\n<p>Lyons<br \/>\nCreek 6,700 feet 75.5 inches 30 inches 94<\/p>\n<p>Tamarack<br \/>\nFlat 6,550 feet 64 inches 28.8 inches 101<\/p>\n<p>Electronic snowpack readings can be found at:<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/cdec.water.ca.gov\/cdecapp\/snowapp\/sweq.action<\/p>\n<p>For earlier readings, click the calendar icon below the map, select a date, then<br \/>\nRefresh Data.<br \/>\nDetailed information on major reservoir storage is found here:<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/cdec.water.ca.gov\/cdecapp\/resapp\/getResGraphsMain.action<\/p>\n<p>Water Year 2016 precipitation is found at: http:\/\/cdec.water.ca.gov\/snow_rain.html<br \/>\nLook in the right-hand column for the Northern Sierra 8-station index for updated<br \/>\nrainfall readings in the critical northern portion of the state, as well as the San<br \/>\nJoaquin 5-station and Tulare Basin 6-station links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sacramento, CA&#8230;California\u2019s statewide snowpack usually reaches its peak depth and water content each year around the first of April, after which the snow begins to melt as the sun\u2019s path across the sky moves a little further north each day. Therefore, conditions today were just about as good as they\u2019re going to get this year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/dwr330.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}