A series of record-setting blizzards in recent weeks that buried roads, snarled holiday traffic and even temporarily shut down ski resorts has combined to offer California a window of hope after two years of historic and punishing drought.
Plunging a pole into the snow-covered landscape along U.S. 50 near Echo Summit, officials with the California Department of Water Resources on Thursday measured 78.5 inches of snow and about 20 inches of water within that snow — a total that’s 202% of average for this time of year.
That’s about 82% of the way to what water managers would expect for that location to receive by April 1. Snowpack elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada also appears far ahead of historical averages — an unexpected respite from two years of bone-dry conditions, leaving climatologists cautiously optimistic about the prospects for easing the state’s water shortage.
“Obviously we are off to a great start,” said Sean de Guzman, of the California Department of Water Resources. “Let’s just keep it coming.”
Weeks of snow and rain have helped push the state almost completely out of the “exceptional” drought category, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor’s report.
The portion of the state still in what is known as “extreme drought” also shrank from nearly 80% to 33%. Still, it will take sustained precipitation over the next few months for conditions to finally return to normal, experts said.
Thursday’s snow measurement — a monthly tradition during the rainy season that, in these days of intense water monitoring, is largely symbolic — aligned with readings from about 100 electronic sensors across the state that show Mother Nature finally appearing to restock the state’s water coolers.
The statewide snowpack measured 160% of its historical average for Dec. 30 — a bountiful total that, a few weeks ago, appeared all but impossible. Almost all of that snow fell after Dec. 8, when the state’s snowpack levels sat at a paltry 15% of the historical average.
Powder is everywhere in the Sierra, with the northern part of the state at 145% of average snowfall and the central and southern portions of California at 164% and 173% of average, respectively.
“Those are really good numbers for this time of year, especially given how the season started, and especially given recent years,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy. “In fact, it’s actually a remarkable turnaround relative to the extreme snow drought across the entire American West.”
Thursday’s snow-measuring event offered a striking study in extremes — conducted amid a wintry wonderland yet set a mere two miles from Sierra-at-Tahoe, a ski resort ravaged by flames last summer amid one of the state’s worst fire seasons.
The snowfall totals were bolstered by several recent storms that were almost too much of a good thing, stranding holiday travelers at Tahoe-area ski resorts earlier this week while CalTrans crews worked 24-hour shifts to clear mountain highways of several feet of snow. Countless drought-weakened trees buckled under strong winds and thick, wet snowfall blocking roads.
Whiteout conditions and fierce winds caused several ski resorts to close over the Christmas weekend, said Michael Reitzell, president of Ski California. But some are reopening with several days of blue skies in the forecast to start the year, although another storm is setting up to hit next week.
“This is the type of thing you want, in terms of snowfall,” Reitzell said. “I don’t know that we needed it all at once. But it sets up well for the strongest part of the season.”
The period from Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2021, ranked as the driest two-year stretch on record in California, according to Michael Anderson, California’s state climatologist. The state also registered its third-warmest stretch during those same two years.
The legacy of those conditions is still being felt in state reservoirs.
Shasta, Trinity and San Luis reservoirs remain at about half their historical averages for this time of year, while Oroville Reservoir is only about three-quarters of the way to where it should be.
“It’s a great way to start the season,” said Andrew Schwartz, station manager and lead scientist at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab. “But we haven’t been able to determine yet whether or not it’s really going to have any impacts on the drought, or even fire danger.”
At the snow lab near Donner Summit, 264 inches of snow had fallen from Oct. 1 through Dec. 30 — breaking a 51-year record. Almost all of it fell in December: A record 202 inches fell as of Dec. 30, Schwartz said.
Simply walking 50 yards to his measurement station recently took 40 minutes, Schwartz added. His house is buried in 10 to 13 feet of snow, and his second-story windows are boarded up to keep the powder from breaking in.
“It’s been pretty intense,” Schwartz said.
It’s all thanks to a surprise atmospheric shift over the Pacific Ocean that ran counter to forecasts for a dry winter.
A ridge of high pressure over the Pacific Ocean unexpectedly moved just a few hundred miles west of where forecasters originally expected it to be this winter — a razor-thin change that has made all the difference for California.
Had it been where meteorologists initially feared, the state would still be bone dry and with little hope for relief from the drought.
“So if this pattern were to shift a few hundred miles to the east, California would dramatically dry out and warm up,” Swain said. “And that could still happen in the back half of winter. But up to this point, we’ve gotten really lucky.”
