Record dry conditions did not stop local skiers and snowboarders from optimistically heading up to the local slopes over the holiday weekend. But, according to several enthusiasts from West Orange County, the only thing they found in abundance were crowds, and very little snow.
“It’s really crowded up there, but the snow is pretty bad,” said Mike, a sledder at Snow Valley in Running Springs. He was up from Stanton with his family for a New Year’s weekend of snow play and boarding. “Everybody came up looking for snow, and there just isn’t any.”
That’s not surprising. On Tuesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported the state’s “mountain snowpack is among the driest for the date on record.” The snowpack’s statewide water content was listed at 19 percent of the January 3 average.
This equates to only 7% of the expected maximum snowpack which usually comes around April 1. Normally at this time of year, the state has accumulated about 35% of the season’s total snowpack. And, the dry heat continues.
“Probably today, it would be 18%,” California’s Chief Hydrologist Maury Roos told OC180NEWS yesterday. “We’ve got such a deficit now, it’s going to be difficult to make it up.”
“We went up on Friday for a couple of test runs,” said Ricky, a snowboarder from Rossmoor at Snow Valley. “But when we started seeing them bring down people on stretchers, we decided to quit.”
Roos told us he reviewed the ten previous driest years and in only one of those years, 1996, did the snow in January through March make up for the December shortfall. Four of those years had higher than average snow for the January-March period, but it was not enough to offset the deficit at the beginning of the season.
“On Friday morning it was pretty icy, mainly from manmade snow,” Said Maurice, a snowboarder at Snow Valley. “But it just got warmer and warmer as the weekend went on. We found a couple of shaded patches to do a little sledding with the kids, but no more boarding this trip.”
A strong ridge of high atmospheric pressure along the West Coast ruined last weekend’s fun by preventing the usual movement of Pacific storms into California. This strong high pressure ridge continues unabated and is why it was so hot in Orange County yesterday.
“It really started in November,” said Roos. “That’s not an uncommon pattern for the winter. What is uncommon is to see it last so long without a break.”
Yesterday the Southern California weather forecast was calling for considerable cooling starting tomorrow. That means the high pressure ridge is starting to break down, but it doesn’t mean the snowboarders should plan another trip real soon. Weakening of the pressure ridge means off shore flows could begin, but if there are no storms over the ocean to come on shore, local weather will be cooler, but not wetter.
“That would be a good sign,” said Roos referring to the forecasted cooling trend. “It least we would be in an area where it’s not stable and it’s starting to change a little bit, but it doesn’t necessarily correspond to wetness.”
Nevertheless, the State’s Chief Hydrologist is less concerned about this season than the local skiers. Chances are only one out of ten that the snowpack will get back to normal before the season’s end. So local snow lovers may be in for a below average season. But, thanks to plenty of water on hand in the state’s reservoirs, we are not likely to run out of water this year.
“Because of the good carryover storage situation, we’ll still have enough I think even if we have somewhat less than average run off this year,” Roos told OC180NEWS. But…“we’re not set up very well in the state to handle multiyear droughts,” Roos said. “Some individual agencies are in good shape for that, but as a general rule, it’s pretty much a year at a time.”
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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