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First Snow Survey of Season; Water Below Average but Still Early: Dept. of Water Resources - NBC Bay Area Bay Area Drought Watch

Coverage of California's looming water problem 
By Rich Pedroncelli and Scott Smith

Surveyors plunged a pole into the Sierra Nevada snowpack on Tuesday and took the first manual measurement of the wet season, finding water content was about half of normal as California flirts with a possible sixth year of drought.

Despite the lower water-content level, he called it a good start because higher elevations were doing better.

Surveyors took the reading at 6,000 feet near Lake Tahoe as major cold and windy storms were expected to dump four to five feet of snow through Thursday in areas above 4,500 feet in Northern and central California, while mountain areas below that could get two to three feet, forecasters said.

The storms were expected to boost the snowpack that provides roughly a third of California's water in normal years for drinking, farming and wildlife when it melts in warm, dry months.

Electronic monitors at elevations throughout the Sierra in late December showed the overall snowpack with 72 percent water content. Gehrke also took the survey at an elevation below the snowline for December's storms.

"This year, it looks like (storms are) lined up off the coast and will continue to increase the snowpack," Gehrke said as he stood on about three feet of snow.

Elsewhere, rain was expected starting Tuesday afternoon throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Winter storm advisories will go into effect from 4 a.m. Wednesday until 4 a.m. Thursday, said Bob Benjamin, a National Weather Service forecaster.

A second, stronger system was expected to hit the region over the weekend, bringing the possibility of as much as five additional feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada.

The drought eased last year and so did regulations. Sierra Getting Ready for Snow Season

