A few of you growers out there have told me in the past "Lynn, if you want it to rain, hold a field meeting!"
So it is in this spirit that my very first blog post forecast a warm winter right before the major snow dump in the Sierra over the holidays! Indeed the Department of Water Resource's (DWR) California Data Exchange Center (CDEC), my go-to site for up to the minute hydrological information, shows the latest snow data for the American River Basin range sites at 52 to 67 inches of snow! This includes the snow stations at upper and lower Carson Pass, Aloha and Echo lakes, and Tamarack flat. The snow currently has an 18-30% water content and is at 31-60% (depending on the location) of April 1 historic records. According to the CDEC, the April 1 historic average is based on measurements from 1951-2000.
A little closer to home, all of that snow in the Sierra amounted to a good drenching of rain to ring in the New Year. The following stations recorded December rainfall amounts:
Camino CIMIS: 7.41in.
Diamond Springs CIMIS: 6.99 in.
Plymouth CIMIS: 6.49 in.
And our PMI stations recorded December rainfall totals:
Lava Cap PMI: 9.56 in.
Fairplay PMI: 5.8 in.
Amador Eagle: 6.16 in.
Amador Renwood: 5.47 in.
Calaveras Ironstone: 10.17 in. (Wow! this one surprised me, as Calaveras often has lower precip. than further North).
A very good start to the new year. Let's hope the cold weather sticks around.