HARDLY PACKING IT IN
Time to start hoping, praying, lighting candles or casting spells to manifest enough snowstorms to magically bring into being either a Fantastic February or a Miracle March.
Or maybe both.
The Sierra snowpack is in sad shape for the middle of January.
The average snow load stands at about 61% of normal as of Jan. 7, according to data from Los Angeles Department of Water and power snow pillows. The skimpy 6.2 inches of water content in the white stuff is just 27% of normal snow water for April 1, when LADWP and other state water managers estimate runoff ranges for the year.
Even those meager snow totals are deceiving. A couple of storms at the end of November and December deposited most of the region’s snow. Mammoth Mountain reported about 100 inches of snow during those two months. After that? Pretty much nothing. By mid-January, the mountain had seen a total of 109 inches of snow, compacted into a base of 46-66 inches.
The LADWP snow pillow chart shows one big bump and then a flat line into January that is barely above the snow levels recorded in January 2015, the lowest snow year LADWP has ever recorded.
The snow pillow readings from individual stations are uniformly low, with four locations hitting between 45% and 65% of normal to date, and between 21% and 29% of April 1 average. The highlight is Rock Creek, coming in at 106% of normal to date, which is still just 53% of the April 1 average. The low point was Cottonwood Lakes, at 30% of normal to date and 13% of April 1.
Long term weather forecasts for Mammoth and Bishop don’t even show a hint of clouds, much less snow or rainstorms for at least another week, and probably longer, thanks to the famed “atmospheric blocking system.” Of course, putting that forecast in a newspaper almost guarantees a storm will appear out of the ether, so you’re welcome.
As far as rain, the eye-popping number is .28 inches, which is the rainfall in Los Angeles since the start of the “rain year” on Oct. 1. That dry spell has been cited as one of the prime contributors to the massive, wind-driven Palisades and Eaton wildfires that have burned about 38,000 acres destroyed about 12,000 structures so far.
In the Eastern Sierra, rainfall is also minimal to virtually nonexistent. Forget averages. Some totals include just .90 inches in Bishop, 1.6 inches in Big Pine and 1.8 inches in Long Valley.
Jon Klusmire of Bishop prefers nekkid hippies doing snow dances in these situations.
