California’s snowpack is good news for the parched state—for now
It's still early in the season, and the drought isn't ending
California’s wet winter continues, with rain and snowstorms still pelting the state. These constant
California’s snowpack is good news for the parched state—for now
It's still early in the season, and the drought isn't ending
California’s wet winter continues, with rain and snowstorms still pelting the state. These constant storms are building up the California snowpack to levels that haven’t been seen in the drought-plagued state in several years.
“This is way better than some of the recent years we’ve had,” says David Pierce, a climatologist at Scripps Instituiton of Oceanography. “In the northern Sierra Nevada it’s about the same that It was last year, and that was a little above normal—so no complaints—but in the central and especially southern Sierras it’s way above where it was last year.”
The current snowpack is 163 percent above normal levels for the year, and precipitation levels in the state reached the equivalent of 80 percent of the total amount of water expected in a given California water year (water years stretch from October 1 to September 30). That’s impressive, says Pierce, but not quite record-breaking.
But even so, the snow and rain still signal a promising start to 2017. In California, a healthy snowpack isn’t just a good sign