State’s Snowpack Among Driest on Record for Date

California’s mountain snowpack is one of the driest on record for the date, according to a survey conducted today by the Department of Water Resources.

The state’s snowpack water content is just 19% of the Jan. 3 statewide average. The manual survey was conducted off Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe.

Thanks to good reservoir storage from 2011 and several months of winter ahead, however, state officials remain cautiously optimistic about this year’s water supply. Officials have estimated that the State Water Project will be able to deliver 60% of the slightly more than 4 million acre-fee of water requested by public water agencies. That number is likely to change as winter progresses.

Today’s survey is the first of five that DWR and cooperating agencies will conduct around the first of the month from January to May.  The manual surveys supplement and check the accuracy of real-time electronic readings from sensors up and down the state.

The 60% delivery estimate is largely based on the known quantify of carryover reservoir storage. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the SWP’s principal storage reservoir with a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet, is still 72% full thanks to last winter’s heavy storms. That is 114% of average for the date. Lake Shasta north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is 68% full (106% of average). 

California’s snowpack provides approximately one-third of the water for the state’s households, farms and industries.

See DWR's full press release.