Update, March 24, 2015: So, we started this season’s water-watching in December with an eye to what early winter storms were doing to replenish the state’s critically low water reservoirs. We all know what’s happened since:
A wet December followed by one of the driest Januaries on record.
In February, a couple of nice shots of rain in Northern California, with scant precipitation farther south.
And then March. It’s not one of California’s Big Three months for precipitation. But in 1991, an occasion that water-watchers recall with increasing wistfulness, March produced such a bounty of rain and snow that it’s still known as a miracle.
A week before the end of the month, it’s clear we’ll witness no miracle this time. What we’re seeing instead is nothing short of shocking. The April 1 snowpack, to be officially reported next week, will be the lowest on record. And “lowest on record” doesn’t quite convey how extreme the situation really is.
Last year, the “snow-water equivalent” in the thin blanket of white covering California’s mountains stood at a shade under 25 percent of its historic average. That beat the record, a hair over 25 percent, set during the severe drought season of 1976-77.
And this year’s snowpack?
The network of electronic sensors sending in reports from highland locations from the Trinity Alps down to the southern Sierra is showing that statewide, the snowpack is at 9 percent of average — not even half of where it was last year, when it was at its record low.
Part of the standard California water lecture is to talk about our “frozen reservoir” in the mountains — a reference to the fact that anywhere between a third and a half of the water we use each year falls as snow, melts gradually as the weather warms, then comes tumbling down to our valleys as clear, cold water.
So, that’s not happening this year. Regardless of what the statistical summaries say about our reservoirs — our big Northern California lakes are still in good shape relative to last year, though far below average for the date — the near-total absence of snow means California, its 38 million people and its giant farm economy are headed into unknown territory.
Unknown, except that it will be very dry.