Huge, But I Don't Think Californians Knew It Was This Huge -- April 22, 2017

This is from NASA.

I should do this as bullets or data points, but maybe later. Too much other stuff to do right now.

California snowpack:

New NASA data show that snowpack in Tuolumne River Basin—a major source of water for San Francisco and California’s Central Valley—is currently greater than that of the four previous years combined.

NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) measured snowpack in the Tuolumne Basin of the Sierra Nevada at 1.5 cubic kilometers (1.2 million acre-feet) as of April 1, 2017. That’s enough snow to fill the Rose Bowl (in Pasadena, California) nearly 1,600 times.

The maps at the link show snow-water equivalents (in meters of liquid water) across the Tuolumne River Basin as measured by the ASO team in 2015 and 2017.

Snow-water equivalent (SWE) is an estimate of how much water you would get if all of the snow melted at once. Dark blue areas indicate the deepest snow and most water, while light blue to white areas have much less snow.

“In such a huge snow season, the data available from ASO will provide critical guidance for water managers as we enter into the peak melt season later this spring,” said Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys at the California Department of Water Resources.

Snowpack across California in 2017 is close to the largest total on record.

ASO data from Tuolumne measured the snowpack there to be twice the volume present in April 2016, and 21 times larger than in 2015, the lowest on record.

The combined April 1 snow water equivalent of 2013 through 2016—when California was in an intense drought—add up to just 92 percent of the 2017 total.

According to reports from the California Department of Water Resources, the state as a whole received 175 percent of the average rain and snowfall for fall and winter; it saw 160 percent of the average snowfall. In much of the Central Sierra, snow lies 8 meters (25 feet) deep, and in some high mountain basins, it is deeper than 24 meters (80 feet). Water managers estimate that as much as 36 million cubic kilometers (29 million acre-feet) of water is now stored in the mountains across the state.

The best news: this was all reported before President Trump's 100th day in office.

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Video Of The Day

From Don. Incredible. Lots to say, but not today.