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Results From The Latest Sierra Snow Survey Are Disappointing

A winter with little precipitation has left most of California abnormally dry and officials are bracing for the possibility of an early and more intense wildfire season amid record-breaking temperatures.

Those concerns weren't eased at all by the results from the third Sierra snow survey of the winter season conducted on Thursday at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe.

The total snow amount at that location is now 29-inches. That translates to water content of 11.5-inches which is just 47 percent of the average for this time of year. But that is well below the 72-percent average back on January 30th. Officials say this is the driest February for the Northern Sierra since 1921.

"Right now, 2020 is on track to be a below-average year but we could still see large storms in March and April that will improve the current snowpack," said Sean de Guzman, chief of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Section. "While periods of dry conditions are expected in California, climate change has made them more unpredictable and extreme which is why we must always use the water we have wisely."

The Phillips Station snow course is one of more than 260 snow courses across the Sierra Nevada that DWR manually or electronically measures each winter and early spring.


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