California Snow Survey: Statewide Snowpack at 205% of Average for This Date The Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted the second snow survey of the season at Phillips Station on Wednesday, February 1st, 2023. The manual survey recorded 85.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 33.5 inches, which is 193 percent of the average for this location on February 1. The snow water equivalent measures the amount of […] SnowBrains | February 3, 2023 1 Comment
Snowpack Normal or Above Normal Across Most of the West | California Biggest Snowpack Since 1995 Except for one or two areas, the westwide snowpack is normal or above-normal for this time of year and, in some cases, double normal. Considerable storms in California and Utah have significantly boosted the snowpack, with the Tahoe basin sitting at 187% normal and the Wasatch at 166% normal. Related: Top 9 Deepest Snowpacks in North America Right Now California’s […] WeatherBrains | February 2, 2023 1 Comment
Winter Play Options at Mt. Mazama, AKA Crater Lake National Park, OR When you think of winter recreation in the Oregon Cascades, your thoughts and imagination might immediately spring for Mt. Hood (Wy’East), Mt. Bachelor, Three Sisters Wilderness, Hoodoo, or the Willamette Pass area. While these areas are fantastic and hard-to-beat places for winter adventuring activities of all kinds, there is one legendary spot in Oregon that flies under the radar and […] Backcountry Matthew Oliphant | January 31, 2023 0 Comments
Snowpack Survey Shows December Storms Provided Big Snow Totals With More Systems, Flooding in Forecast Today, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted the first snowpack survey of the season at Phillips Station. The manual survey recorded 55.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 17.5 inches, which is 177 percent of the average for this location. The snow water equivalent measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack. It is […] SnowBrains | January 6, 2023 0 Comments
Snowpack Extremely Healthy Across Most of the West | California 2nd Best Snowpack in 20 Years Except for one or two areas, the entire westwide snowpack is above average for this time of year and in many cases double normal. Considerable storms in California and Utah have significantly boosted the snowpack, with the Tahoe basin sitting at 229% normal and the Wasatch at 171% normal. According to the East Bay Times, California is closing in on […] SnowBrains | January 4, 2023 0 Comments
Snowpack Across the West is Double the Normal for This Time of Year It’s still very early in the season, but this graphic of the current snowpack across the western states makes for good reading. Except for Wyoming and Colorado, almost every area shows a snowpack at least double the normal for this time of year. Related: The Dangers of Early Season Backcountry Skiing Some big storms have massively boosted snowpacks and allowed […] SnowBrains | November 17, 2022 0 Comments
NASA: All Eyes on the Snow as Water Supplies Dwindle As the American West suffers a 22-year-long “megadrought” that researchers say is the worst in at least 1,200 years, water managers now have a new level of insight into just how much water will be available for their communities. Water departments in the West are using maps and models originally created by a NASA team to help track water and […] SnowBrains | September 26, 2022 0 Comments
Reexamination of Colorado’s Snowpack Leads to a Surprising Discovery about Microplastics and Possible Clues to Receding Snowpacks Reynold’s Rediscovery Richard Reynolds, a retired U.S. Geological Survey researcher recently made an important discovery in Colorado’s Upper River Basin snowpack. It is concerning a subject Reynolds has been looking at for quite some time, co-authoring one article on the topic in 2015 titled, “Regional Variability in Dust-On-Snow Processes and Impacts in Upper Colorado River Basin” followed by another in […] Industry News Ryan Kime | August 11, 2022 0 Comments