SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California is heading into its third year of drought after record dry stretches.
One of the biggest losses the state saw in the 2022 water year was the lack of rain and snow during the typically wet January to March time frame. Historically, December through March are the wettest months for the state. The past three years have come up short for precipitation leading to water restrictions and bigger conservation efforts.
Record heat hit early in April, which started warming the ground and rapidly melting the meager snowpack. Thomas Painter, CEO of Airborne Snow Observatories and research scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, leads a team of scientists in airborne missions measuring snowpack from the sky using equipment like lidar and spectrometers. He says the snowpack has been fairly good at 10,000 feet, but is not looking healthy below that elevation.
Painter says there are three things that work against spring storms helping for drought: periods of warm spring temperatures, historically warmer storms and evaporation rates.
He says putting snow on warm ground is like throwing water into a hot pan, it will melt quickly once it hits the surface this time of year. This doesn't help keep the snowpack in tact for future use. It falls, then melts, and is not a reliable resource for long.
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He also says this time of year, the storms coming in from the Pacific tend to be warmer. We'll accumulate snow at the higher elevations, but there's not much of the Sierra above 10,000 feet. A majority of the Sierra landscape sits below that elevation.
One of the newer areas of focus is evaporation rates. Painter said a lot of the snow, especially at lower elevations, will evaporate before making it into the ground and the rivers.
However, he said if we were to see multiple storms for the next two months, that would help ease drought conditions. Unfortunately, California's weather tends to dry out quickly heading into the dry season.
This puts California on track to dig deeper into drought conditions through the summer with hopes of turning to the next water year to provide much needed rain and snow.
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