One Planet: How Climate Change is Fueling Megadroughts in the Western US
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’re discussing a new study from Columbia University about an emerging climate-driven megadrought in the Western US.
Tag Archive for: Sierra Nevada
Drought Makes Early Start of the Fire Season Likely in Northern California
Expanding and intensifying drought in Northern California portends an early start to the wildfire season, and the National Interagency Fire Center is predicting above-normal potential for large wildfires by midsummer.
Mountain snowpack has been below average across the High Sierra, southern Cascades and the Great Basin, and the agency warns that these areas need to be monitored closely as fuels continue to dry out. The agency also cites a warm, dry pattern in Oregon and central and eastern Washington, and assigns all of these areas a higher-than-average likelihood of wildfires in July.
Season’s Last Snowpack Survey Confirms Dry Winter. California Inching Toward Statewide Drought
The last Sierra Nevada snowpack measurement of the season on Thursday confirmed what California officials have feared for months: The state has suffered through a dry winter.
The state Department of Water Resources announced that the snow was just 1.5 inches deep at its traditional measuring spot at Phillips Station, a vast field off Highway 50 near Echo Summit. The “snow water equivalent” was just a half an inch, or just 3 percent of average for this time of year.
The Phillips measurement was an outlier. A broader measurement taken by 130 electronic sensors throughout the Sierra revealed an average snow water equivalent of 8.4 inches, or 37 percent of average for this time of year.
Latest Survey of California Snow Pack Measures Below Normal
The last seasonal survey of snow in the Sierra Nevada confirms that California had a dry winter that will leave much-needed runoff levels below normal, authorities said Thursday.
The snow was only 1 ½ inches deep at the traditional manual measuring site at Phillips Station in the range east of Sacramento, and the water contained in it was equivalent to just a half-inch, which is 3 percent of the May average for the location, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
Sierra snow melt typically provides about 30% of the state’s water supply.
More broadly, 130 electronic snow sensors scattered throughout the Sierras indicated that California’s snow pack water equivalent is 37 percent of the May average.
Readings for April also were well below average.
“March and April storms brought needed snow to the Sierras, with the snow pack reaching its peak on April 9, however those gains were not nearly enough to offset a very dry January and February” and the last two weeks of higher temperatures have rapidly reduced the snow pack, said Sean de Guzman, chief of the department’s Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecast Section.
The snow measurements help in predicting runoff into reservoirs that will help meet California’s water demand in the summer and fall, the water agency said.
At the moment, reservoirs are in good shape, with the six largest close to or even above their historical averages. Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface reservoir, is currently more than 80% full, authorities said.
‘Borrowing From the Future’: What an Emerging Megadrought Means for the Southwest
It’s the early 1990s, and Park Williams stands in the middle of Folsom Lake, at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills in Northern California. He’s not walking on water; severe drought has exposed the lakebed.
“I remember being very impressed by the incredible variability of water in the West and how it’s very rare that we actually have just enough water,” said Williams, who went on to become a climate scientist at Columbia University. “It’s often the case there’s either too much or too little.”
Williams is the lead author on a report out this month in the journal Science detailing the extent of drought conditions in the American West.
Active Pattern to Bring Rain and Snow to the West in the Week Ahead
More rain and mountain snow will move through the West, including communities in worsening drought, in the early part of the week ahead. This wet pattern began when an area of low pressure moved into the California coast on Sunday. It brought more than an inch of rain to much of the Los Angeles area.
‘March Miracle’ Continues as Several Storms Queue Up for California
After an absence of major storms for much of the winter, the ‘March Miracle,’ in terms of wet weather, seems likely to continue next week in California.
The storm that brought drenching rain and yards of snow to the Sierra Nevada early this week was still lingering as of Wednesday night but will diminish over the next couple of days.
A lull in storms is forecast late this week to this weekend, but a new series of storms is destined to impact much of the West next week with more rain and mountain snow from Monday to Wednesday.
California Mountains Blanketed in Snow After March Storms
California mountains are blanketed in snow and much of the state has had plenty of rain in a remarkable March turnabout from the extremely dry first two months of the year.
The most recent statewide storm started during the weekend and, despite diminishing, snow snowfall and showers were still occurring here and there.
In the Sierra Nevada, Homewood Mountain Resort on the west shore of Lake Tahoe reported late Tuesday a storm total of 114 inches (289.5 centimeters) of snow at its summit and 74 inches (188 centimeters) at the base.
California Storm Dumps Up to 70 Inches of Snow, Making Small Dent in Massive Snowpack Deficit
The week started with extreme snow in the Sierra Nevada, where a powerful high altitude storm system brought more than 60 inches of snow to California’s highest peaks. Winds over 100 mph battered the Sierra Ridge as fee of snow piled high, sparking avalanche concerns and forcing the closure of Interstate 80. Visibility at time plummeted to near zero.
