Snowstorms since late December dumped the equivalent of 17.5 million acre feet of water on the Sierra Nevada, says the Los Angeles Times, pointing to estimates by University of Colorado researchers. “That figure amounts to about a third of what the researchers said was the drought’s 54 million-acre feet shortfall in the snowpack” during the five-year California drought.
An acre-foot of water — enough to cover an acre of land one foot deep, or 325,851 gallons — would supply two average households for a year.
Statewide, the snowpack is 186 percent of average for the end of January. “Rain and snow levels up and down the Sierra have been climbing at rates similar to the wettest years on record,” says the Times. The two largest reservoirs in the state, Shasta and Oroville, are more than three-quarters full. In a normal year, snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada accounts for one-third of the state water supply.