Good news for drought-weary state spells trouble for parts of deluged Central Valley where rivers likely will overflow in spring.
(Bloomberg) — California’s relentless winter storms have left behind one of the state’s biggest snowpacks on record, while raising the risks of prolonged flooding this spring in parts of the Central Valley already under water.
The snowpack’s water content measures 237% of normal for this time of year, officials with the California Department of Water Resources said Monday. That ties the previous record, set on April 1 of 1952, and it’s well ahead of the next runner-up: 227% in 1983. The start of April typically marks the snowpack’s peak for the year as winter storms give way to the warmer temperatures and longer days of spring.
Read More: California’s Crippling Drought Is Almost Over After Big Storms
That shift now worries California’s water managers. Parts of the Central Valley’s Tulare Basin — a former lake drained for agriculture — have been flooded by the storms. And the mountains above the basin now hold enough snow to push spring runoff on the Kern River to 422% of average, said Sean de Guzman, manager of the department’s snow survey and water supply forecasting unit. The area could see prolonged flooding, warned department Director Karla Nemeth.
And yet, the deep snows are also a welcome change for the state, which has struggled through years of drought, shrinking reservoirs and dwindling snowpack. Last April 1, when de Guzman and his team conducted their manual snow measurement at Phillips Station near Lake Tahoe, they found a grassy meadow with scattered clumps of snow. On Monday, the surveyors were standing on about 10 feet. “Last April there was nothing here,” de Guzman said. “There was like a patch of snow.”
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