#tahoesouth /9aqJxRQ圜M- Susie Kocher March 6, 2023 There’s my pup on our house’s roof in the snow cave we found around our bathroom window dormer. That always raises the specter of flooding at some later date–and, beyond the event that will likely unfold in the coming days, this very large snowpack will mostly remain intact until later in the spring (when it might pose the risk of more substantial and widespread snowmelt flooding later in the season). And, based on the forecast, some of it (particularly at elevations below about 4,500 feet) might melt sooner rather than later. That water stored in the snowpack (known as snow water equivalent, or SWE) is going to melt eventually. And with a near-record snowpack in some places (though not others–notably including the northern Sierra) comes the reality that there’s a lot of water stored up in them thar hills. Suffice it to say: February 2023 was an extraordinary month for snow in California. In the SoCal mountains, particularly the San Bernardinos, what was arguably the worst blizzard since the late 1980s in this part of the state has led to a widespread state of emergency, with folks trapped for extended periods without food or electricity (and resulting in a National Guard activation). The hills and mountains around the SF Bay Area retained a substantial snowpack for days folks in the Mendocino and Lake County interiors have now been snowed in for a week or more interstates have frequently closed in the Sierra and roofs have started to collapse under the extreme weight of accumulated snow. Multiple rounds of sea level accumulations occurred along the North Coast, and repeated snowfalls down to 500-1000 feet in elevation have occurred throughout NorCal. The past 3 weeks have featured extraordinary, even historic snowfalls across an unusually broad swath of California. ? #CAwx #CAwater /1FyXSLG75D- UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab March 6, 2023 But, 2017 still has an advantage compared to this season: Snow Water Equivalent (SWE water that comes from melting snow). The #snow over the weekend brought our total to 48.33 feet for the year, which is 0.56 feet above the 2016/2017 total of 47.77 feet.
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