Sierra snowpack in the Goldilocks zone

It’s actually pretty rare for the Sierra snowpack to be in the Goldilocks zone where there is either a bunch of snow, or very little, but it’s just right.

But that’s what we’ve got as the first week of irrigation season wraps up.

On Monday Hydrologist Jeff Anderson took the snowpack’s measure at the Mount Rose snow telemetry site, where he pronounced it normal, running at about 105 percent for the Truckee Basin.

For a term that means “regular,” it’s not that often that any of the Western Nevada basins have achieved the median spot over the last 40 years since the telemetry was installed.

Anderson said that in the last 44 years, only 13 have seen the snowpack at 80-120 percent.

“That means 70 percent of the time we either have a well above normal snowpack or a well below normal snowpack,” he said.

Just over the last nine years the east slope of the Sierra has seen a snowpack as low as 31 percent in 2015 and a record high of 243 percent last year.

That conditions are that good this year is remarkable given that the snowpack in the Carson Basin was at 44 percent median on Jan. 1, which was the seventh lowest since the telemetry was installed in 1981.

“Of the 11 lowest Jan. 1 snowpacks, 2024 is the only year that recovered to a normal peak,” he said.

Today is the date for the median peak of 27.6 inches of the snow-water equivalent at Carson Pass, which is running 4.6 inches higher with 32.2 inches. Carson Pass feeds the West Fork of the Carson River.

With only days left before the April 8 median peak at Ebbetts Pass, which is at the top of the East Fork of the Carson River, there are 35 inches of snow-water equivalent, which is pretty much right on the bubble.

A spring storm through the weekend is unlikely to bring much additional precipitation but forecast cold temperatures will help slowdown the spring melt off in the mountains.

“Temperatures through this weekend will feel more like mid-winter

compared to spring,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Colin McKellar on Friday morning. “There is an additional weak system moving through the area Saturday evening into Sunday. This will give us another 20-30 percent chance for light precipitation for the Sierra. This feature will also keep high temperatures between 10-15 degrees below average. Low temperatures through the weekend will be between 10-15 degrees below average, with a return of mid-20s to low 30s in Western Nevada and single to teens in the Sierra.”