Nine winter atmospheric rivers that brought much needed rain and snow, have been the biggest engine for snow accumulation in the Sierra.
UC Berkeley’s Snow Lab recorded the snowpack at 205% of average for this time of year. They put the entire state of California at 166%.
“Here at the Central Sierra snow lab we have 48 inches of snow water equivalent, which is the amount of water that you get from melting snowpack. And realistically speaking, as long as we have cool temperatures moving forward and we don't see any large rain on snow events, we should be able to keep most of that water that’s in there,” said Andrew Schwartz, a lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Snow Lab.
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According to Schwartz, a fraction of that runoff will be consumed by the ecosystem, but most of it will end up in rivers and state reservoirs for the Department of Water Resources to manage.
It was recently announced it will be able to deliver 35% of the freshwater requested by water agencies this year, up from previous years. The increase is due to an additional 68-billion gallons now expected from the snowpack.
“We get that water flowing out of our taps, and we are able to ensure continued water flow through the melt of the snowpack rather than only having it in spring when the snowpack is melting the most,” Schwartz said.
If we get periodic rain and snow during the next couple of months, it could bump state water allocations even higher, if it stretches the snow melt deep into the summer.
The Department of Water Resources is currently conducting survey flights to collect more information on the snowpack accumulated by these powerful storms. Data from these flights will be used to increase the accuracy of future water supply runoff forecasts.
