After some high levels of snowfall in 2023 and 2024 helped out California's reservoirs, what is the situation now? We speak with Central Sierra Snow Lab to find out.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00UC Berkeley's Central Sierra Snow Laboratory has been tracking snowfall and snowpack more than 75
00:06years. And the research field station is one of the leading snow study sites in the whole world.
00:11So Andrew Schwartz is the director and he joins us now. Andrew, we got more snow coming and a
00:18couple of feet for some of the Sierra beginning tonight. So thanks for making time for us here.
00:23How do you prepare your scientific work ahead of a barrage of snow like this?
00:30Well, there's a lot of preparation that goes into just double checking our instruments,
00:34making sure we have somebody on call to do morning measurements, and keeping an eye on
00:39the building too. If that snow starts to pile up, we actually have to put plywood on the windows
00:43too to make sure that they don't shatter. So a little bit of everything to prepare for these
00:47big storms. Wow. So, so far this winter, what are the snow accumulations total at the snow lab? And
00:53how did this year's number compare to previous years? Well, we're up around 20 to 22 feet right
01:01now at the lab, depending on where you've taken the measurements throughout the year. So that's
01:06accumulated of around the ground right now, we have about seven feet of depth overall, maybe a
01:13little bit less because it's been warm over the last couple of days. Realistically speaking, over
01:18the last couple of years, you know, we had 2023, which was a massive year, we had 63 feet of snow
01:23that year is the second largest year on record. And then last year, we were a little bit above
01:27average too. So right now we're not quite at average, we're only around 80% or so. So we're
01:33lower than the last two years. But it's looking like with these two storms, and maybe one after
01:37fingers crossed, we could get up to average. Certainly it's baseball game, we'd be what in
01:44the seventh inning or so regarding the water year. It's not over yet, which is at least good news.
01:50We wanted to ask you about the snow water equivalent and how that type of snowpack number
01:56is related to, or maybe translating to, water and reservoir levels.
02:00How is that different from just straight up snow depth?
02:05Right, well our snow depth is a combination of air and ice, right? If it was pure ice,
02:13then it would be a glacier. So we have those little pockets of air in it, and that means
02:16that it's not super dense. But what snow water equivalent is, is the amount of water that we
02:22could obtain by melting that snowpack. And so typically, you know, if we have seven feet of
02:29snowpack right now, this time of year our densities are around 0.4 or so. So you know, maybe around
02:35three feet of water coming out of that snowpack at this stage. And that's the number that we're
02:40really focused on. Depth, density, all that stuff doesn't really matter if you're a water manager.
02:45You really want that snow water equivalent. All right, so in your research, can you predict
02:50upcoming state water levels for the summer across the state with things like you were
02:54mentioning with the snow depth and the water content? Absolutely. It makes things a little bit
03:02easier this year that we're coming off of those above average years over the last two years,
03:06because our reservoirs around the state are above average in terms of their current storage.
03:11And it's looking like that's going to continue. Now, what we want is these storms to come in,
03:17get us up to average this year, because that means that little extra cap room that we have,
03:21that's our savings account, right? We can take that forward into the future and say,
03:25eh, next year, if we don't get enough snow, we have this extra water. If we don't get enough
03:30to get up to average this year, we're going to start to dip into that savings. And that's not
03:33ideally where we want to be. But for the time being, at least, our reservoir storage is looking
03:38really good, and we should have some decent snow melt to replenish that as we go into summer.
03:43That's excellent news to hear there. And it's been a few good years in a row here,
03:47which is certainly good. One and two years ago, we did great with rain and snow. Andrew Schwartz,
03:52the director of the Central Sierra Snow Lab, thanks so much for joining us, Andrew.
03:57Thank you for having me on. All righty. Yeah, I still can't believe he said 63 feet.
04:03He said 63 feet.