It has neither the pomp of the Oscars nor the fanaticism of the playoffs, but California’s annual measurement of the snowpack in the Sierra is the sort of spring rite that brings with it intense expectation and dashed hopes. Certainly, that was the case in early March, when the state’s Department of Water Resources reported that the water content of the overall snowpack was only 61% of average.
Translation: It’s not only going to be a really dry year, but we also may be in the middle of a decades-long “megadrought.” In Northern California, sobering aerial photographs show Lake Oroville at 42% of its capacity.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.