Any snow enthusiast on the West Coast will not be surprised that this year’s snow pack in the Sierra Nevadas is far below average. In fact it’s only 38% of average, and the lowest overall accumulation in 29 years. I was up in the Tahoe area four times this winter. Three of those times it felt like late spring with more exposed ground then snow coverage. Aside from a couple big storms that dropped large snowfalls in February it was an all around crappy and brown snow year.

The National Resources Conservation Service has an excelletn ewn site with extensive pdf’s of nationwide snow and precipitation data. The image comes from a Western region % of normal comparison.

Since most all of California’s drinking water comes from the Sierra Nevadas, this is rather significant. Fortunately we have a strong run of full reservoirs so it’s expected that if next year is back to normal there will no issues. However, a couple more winters like this one and we’ll be high and dry and letting the yellow mellow.