The annual California snow survey didn’t impress the California Department of Water Resources Tuesday morning.
The statewide snowpack was only 83 percent of the March 1 average due to moderate rain and snow that’s moved through the valley since October 2015, coupled with warm weather, the department said.
The snow survey, conducted at Phillips Station off of Highway 50, near Sierra at Tahoe, showed that the snowpack was 105 percent of normal at that location.
However, statewide readings suggested this may not be a drought-busting year unless California received heavy rain this month like it did during the “March Miracles” of 1991 and 1995, according to the department.
“Mother Nature is not living up to predictions by some that a ‘Godzilla’ El Niño would produce much more precipitation than usual this winter,” said the department’s director Mark Cowin in a press release. “We need conservation as much as ever.”
“Right now, we’re obviously better than last year but still way below what would be considered adequate for any reasonable level of recovery at this point,” said Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program.