Photo: Deep snow has blanketed the meadow where the second media snow survey of the 2023 season was held at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Photo taken February 1, 2023.
The series of atmospheric rivers in January 2023 demonstrated how quickly California can move from one extreme to another as severe drought conditions gave way to flooding and one of the largest snowpacks in 30 years. Today, California’s Department of Water Resources released its first Bulletin 120 of water year 2023. The Bulletin 120 is a forecast of snowmelt runoff and is a key tool for water managers across the state to understand how the melting snow in the Sierra Nevada will reach streams, rivers and eventually California reservoirs.
California won’t have a complete picture of its water supply until at least April 1, when the state snowpack is typically at its peak and California’s traditional wet season comes to an end. Because of this, the Bulletin 120 will be updated regularly as the winter progresses. Today’s Bulletin 120 provides a range of possibilities for how much runoff may reach California’s reservoirs. It uses three points to characterize this range of possible outcomes: the highest 10 percent of […]
Full article: Challenges of Forecasting Water Supply During Extreme Weather Events