Above average snowpack

[hikerduane]

I was going to go into the Ansel Adams Wilderness one year in mid to late July. I called a couple weeks before the trip and they told me there were still 6' snow drifts and running water thru the meadows. That was a good year to go to the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness west of Red Bluff. I went into the Ansel Adams in mid Oct instead and there was still snow higher up on some parts of the trail I went on and Lake Catherine looked like it had only thawed out about a quarter of the way and was froze over again when I got there.

[dave54]

I can't remember the last time (if ever!) I had to fire up the snowblower on Easter morning to get out of the driveway.

I did this year.

[BSquared]

So, Dave, where do "the Sierras, the Cascades, and the Great Basin meet?"

[madeintahoe]

Well..as of Saturday the snow in our yard had melted down quite a bit..it was so nice to see some dirt showing...But Mother Nature has covered that all up once again with that white stuff I think called snow?? We have received about at least 18" of new snow since yesterday here in Meyers right below Echo Summit...There was Avalanche blasting and we had on and off winds and white out conditions. Had to go out in this and the side street roads had not yet been plowed. Shoveling the snow it seems to be a bit heavy...not that light dry fluffy snow. This week looks nice even 60 here on Thursday...it sure will be nice to get those warm days.
Dave 54...us too with getting out of our driveway..you are lucky you have a snowblower..we do not have one & our driveway is 120 feet long and is not paved it is all dirt with a slight uphill slope...we were lucky we did get out..but it is still not plowed. The 20 years we have lived here..I do not remember ever having Avalanche blasting going on in April.

[dave54]

So, Dave, where do "the Sierras, the Cascades, and the Great Basin meet?"

Search for "Isaac Roop" and "Peter Lassen".

Specifically, I live in the town that headquartered the western division of the Red River Lumber Company.

[gdurkee]

This year is shaping of kind of like 1995, which was not only a big year, but a very late spring. I was at McClure that year and no one was able to get through on the JMT from mid-June to about July 5th because of the high water and serious snow. With luck, it'll be a little warmer this year. It is, finally, starting to get warm and that's being reflected in the melt rate. Above 9,000 it's about 1 1/2" per day. But below that it's about 2" per day. That will speed up substantially if it continues to stay warm and the melt continues at night.

Yet another great DWR web site:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/repo ... NOWDP.html

George

[Baffman]

George,

Any idea which grid system they use for the coordinates? I want to plug a couple into my mapping software but need to match the grid system.

Baff

[gdurkee]

By grid do you mean datum? I like to think they've updated to NAD 84 on all their coordinates, but don't actually know. Their stuff is widely used, so you'd think they've done that... . Maybe Eric knows??


You could do a couple of ground checks: The Charlotte sensor is only about 20 feet from the station as marked on most maps. The Crabtree sensor is about 200 feet SW of the station.

Also, I'm getting way too sucked into reading tea leaves here (spurred on by my worries of a safe crossing of Evolution Creek for me and my wife in June...). The DWR graphs are showing the water content and melt essentially tracking last year, which is good.

I also talked to one of the snow surveyors who just came off the Kern survey. He says that about 1 ft + down there's a layer of very dirty snow. That'll speed things up once it's exposed.

Who knows. I guess when we're actually there, we'll know... .

g.

[ERIC]

Point me to the exact link you're looking at and I can tell you. The only downloads I found were html database query downloads. Those can be opened with a text editor or web authoring software.


Another cool GIS site (if you haven't already seen it): http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/GatewayHome.html