Rain And Snowpack Reading

Sacramento, CA — The third snowpack reading is set for tomorrow and this week’s anticipated storms could boost the stats. However, Department of Water Resources (DWR) water managers say the storms will do little more than dent California’s persistent drought conditions.

“California is in the grip of a game-changing drought and we have no idea how long it will last,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin. “We already have been forced to set State Water Project allocations at zero, and we have nothing but more hard choices ahead until we see significant new amounts of rain and snow. One choice we all must make is to get serious about conserving water in our homes and places of work and make it a lifelong habit.”

This is the third straight year of dry conditions. Today’s electronic readings before the storms showed the water content in the statewide snowpack is only 22 percent of normal for the date and 19 percent of the average April 1 seasonal total.

The current electronic readings of the Sierra regions are below:

Northern is 13% of normal for the date
Central is 30% of normal for the date
South is 21% of normal for the date

The rainfall in the area could changes these figures by tomorrow’s manual snowpack reading. The snowpack typically provides about a third of the water used in California.