“While we see a terrific snowpack — and that in and of itself may be an opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief — we are by no means out of the woods when it comes to drought,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
In this photo provided by the California Department of Water Resources, forecasting chief Sean de Guzman, second from right, and engineers work the measurement phase of the first media snow survey of the season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023.
Officials from the department measured the snow and its water content in the community of Phillips just west of Lake Tahoe, marking the first snow survey of the winter. The snow there was at a depth of 55.5 inches — enough to store 17.5 inches of water. That's at 177% of the historical average for that station.
Tuesday was the third most snow recorded in early January in the past 40 years, behind 1983 and 2011. The same thing happened last year, when a series of large storms in December pushed the state's snowpack to well above average. But the next three months were the driest ever recorded. Two more powerful storms are expected to hit the state this week, and these will be much colder. The National Weather Service says the mountains could get up to 5 feet of snow between the two storms.
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