Just west of Mount Shasta, in a snow-covered valley in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, avalanche forecaster Aaron Beverly drives a blue, 10-foot aluminum tube into the snow.
鈥淲e鈥檙e gonna do our stab,鈥� he says. 鈥淗opefully when we pull this out the snow will stay in it.鈥�
He swivels the perpendicular handle at the top of the pole through the snow and ice until it hits dirt.
Beverly is an avalanche forecaster with the Mt. Shasta Avalanche Center. He and a few other forecasters have skied several miles into the woods to take snow measurements. They鈥檙e taken in the same locations every year and are part of more than 250 surveys around California. The snow here in the Klamath Mountains provides critical water for the state.
鈥淭his flows into the Sacramento, ultimately. And then it flows down into the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley, Central Valley. It gets pumped from the Delta over into the aqueduct system that goes even further south down to LA,鈥� Beverly says.
These measurements and other automated readings will be fed into a database managed by the California Department of Water Resources. That information will be used by farmers, politicians and environmentalists. The resulting water levels will dictate the seasons of rafting companies, water access for fracking operations and critical habitat for migratory birds.
Beverly pulls the metal tube out of the snow. Carefully, with the cylinder of snow and ice still inside, he and another forecaster balance it horizontally on a hanging scale.
鈥淗old it up high enough,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want it touching the ground.鈥�
After they weigh it and do some calculations, the forecasters will be able to say how much water is contained in the snowpack.
This winter, December provided several big storms. But January and February have been dry.
鈥淭he drought from last year never ended. It hasn鈥檛 ended,鈥� says Brett Lutz, the lead forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Medford. He鈥檚 also helping with the Klamath survey.
Based on the past few dry months, and a high-pressure weather system keeping out storms, Lutz says it鈥檚 unlikely that this region will reach normal precipitation levels this year. But the snowpack varies.
鈥淚n the Sierras, the probability is higher of getting to normal precipitation than it is across a good part of interior southwest Oregon,鈥� Lutz says.
This area, referred to as the Northern Sierra-Trinity region, is currently at about 80% of normal snowpack for the season, according to the Department of Water Resources. But after several years of drought, there鈥檚 a water deficit.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got to have surpluses in future months and water years in order to make up for the deficit,鈥� Lutz says.
Today鈥檚 survey is just one data point out of hundreds that will be collected in California this season. The snowpack so far is decent, but the stakes are high for the rest of February, March and April.
The surveyors pack up their equipment, make their calculations, and put on their skis. There鈥檚 plenty of snow for the ride out. As for water next summer, there鈥檚 still reason to be concerned.
