Snowpack in a sentence

The black line shows this 2023 snowpack levels while the green line shows the 30-year median snowpack level.

The San Bernardino Mountains, which saw exceptional — — snowpack this winter, may also see some minor local risks, “but there isn’t the same kind of huge snowpack reservoir that there is in the southern Sierra,” he said.

However, the Sierra snowpack remains only about halfway to its April 1 peak, “so if we see a longer stretch of dry conditions it is still possible to end the season with a below-average snowpack,” said Michael Anderson, state climatologist with the DWR.

Mr. Gottlieb and Dr. Mankin combined existing snowpack, temperature and precipitation data to reconstruct snowpack patterns over the past 40 years.

Across the Sierra Nevada, this year’s snowpack peaked at about 2.7 times the average, weighing an estimated 55 billion tons, according to Painter.

Additionally, since 2020, Aurora’s snowpack has been well below the annual average, according to a city staff memo.

Along the upper Rio Grande River in southern Colorado, snowpack increased over the past two weeks to 125% of the norm.

Although the homes had foundation concerns prior to Utah’s record-setting season for snowpack, officials are still concerned about ground stability across the Wasatch Foothills as the snow continues to melt.

And drought years lead to low snowpack, which, when coupled with dust, disrupts rivers.

And then you've got to figure out where is that water going?" she said, noting some of the flooding woes the West already dealt with this year in the wake of a series of atmospheric rivers and melting snowpack.

Another risk is that significant snowmelt could worsen the flooding risk in areas with shallow snowpack, typically below 5,000 feet, such as creeks and streams in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

As the record-setting snowpack melted, rivers and streams across the state carried even more water to previously parched areas.

But a few warm, dry months followed, and when snowpack was supposed to peak in early April, it was just 38% of the historic average.

But California’s Sierra snowpack, which provides about a third of the state’s water supply, continued to benefit from the back-to-back dumps of heavy snowfall.

But Mother Nature could still influence how the above-average snowpack flows into the waterways.

But the abundant winter snowpack has provided a nice runoff, swelling rivers to near-flood stage, elevating Lake Powell’s water level by a whopping in a few weeks and making the high-flow experiment possible once again.

But this year’s heavy Sierra snowpack — 244 percent of normal on April 1 — has rangers reluctant to make any prediction for this summer.

But when the cleaner snow is factored in, snowpack loss is slashed by more than half—52%.

California’s massive snowpack is a bounty that will melt and continue to fill the state’s biggest reservoirs through the spring.

California’s persistent droughts are driven by reduced snowpack, decreased precipitation, and rising temperatures that cause increased evaporation, making California particularly vulnerable to changing climatic conditions.