It’s finally here… the season that nearly everybody else has been experiencing in the United States: winter! A little over a week ago, the San Bernardino Mountains looked relatively bare… now San Gorgonio looks properly dusted with snow as the pink winter sun rises in the morning and rakes its pale rosy light across the western range.
In the last five days, over four feet of snow has packed onto the peak with eight inches coming down in the last 24 hours. That’s good news for winter recreators and those of us who like a snowy mountain backdrop for our winter hikes. It’s also good for California, as the golden state celebrated zero drought conditions across the state late last year but a warmer winter brought early blooms to the hi-desert but little to no rain.
Some of the Sierras still lacking
The Sierra Mountains are tracked a little more closely with snowpack monitoring in the northern, central and southern range areas.
According to California Cooperative Snow Surveys on the California Department of Water Resources website – the southern Sierras currently have 100% of normal snowpack, 75% in the central Sierras and just half of the regular snow in the Northern Sierra / Trinity range. California receives 30% of its freshwater from snow warming up in spring and supplying springs, creeks and rivers with snow melt.
For the most part, desert dwellers use water from aquifers directly underneath us but those underground water sources are recharged and renewed by the same systems as other areas in the state. Snow in the mountains is great but the rain that falls onto a thirsty desert does the most for our native plants and water tables.
Winter arrives late but hopefully stays
The cold snap we are currently in is forecast to loosen its grip in the coming week, with daytime temperatures climbing back into the 70’s. I’ll be out on my property today, picking up cushions and bird feeders that were redistributed by the murder winds during last weeks storm.
It’s also a good reminder to find any standing water and dump it out. Don’t give those invasive mosquitos any space to breed – the lack of these bloodsuckers has been a Southern California privilege for decades!
Despite the warming trend, don’t catch spring fever yet! We are still deep in the winter months and despite whispers of super blooms and sunnier days, the official start of spring is still about a month off.
