Doom largely continues...
The good news, there was actually some snow and thus an actual increase in the SWE!
The bad news, the increase only puts the SWE at 4.3. That is only half of the lowest ever measured before this year (8.6) on this date. And it is just under 30% of the median for this date (14.7). In other words, really, really bad even with the recent snow.
So overall, the snowpack is still horrible, and while there is a bit of snow in the forecast, things are still trending to the warm side for the first half of April which is not a good thing.
Meanwhile, the CBRFC came up with its April 1st "official" forecast that will be the basis for the USBR 24 Month Study released two weeks from now. It is also quite bad, the question now being is it even bad enough to match reality:
The "official" forecast now has a 70% exceedance of just 950 kaf. In other words, there is a 30% chance the run off will be the lowest ever. And a 10% chance it is only 500 kaf!
Up thread there has been discussion about whether the models used for this forecast are potentially underestimating a year like this which has no analog in history. It seems like there should be well over a 50% chance this is the lowest run off ever, it is hard to imagine how we avoid that in fact given the snowpack is half the lowest ever seen. Though, at this point, it almost doesn't matter if it is even lower than these numbers - they are so small that changing them upward or downward really amounts to "small change" in the end. The numbers are so low that altering them by 50% more or 50% less still results in about the same amount of catastrophe.
So at this point I'd say any future changes to SWE or the forecasts are almost irrelevant to the lake level. Bad is written in stone at this point. The big variable is what does USBR do with releases, which we will all await with baited breath...
The good news, there was actually some snow and thus an actual increase in the SWE!
The bad news, the increase only puts the SWE at 4.3. That is only half of the lowest ever measured before this year (8.6) on this date. And it is just under 30% of the median for this date (14.7). In other words, really, really bad even with the recent snow.
So overall, the snowpack is still horrible, and while there is a bit of snow in the forecast, things are still trending to the warm side for the first half of April which is not a good thing.
Meanwhile, the CBRFC came up with its April 1st "official" forecast that will be the basis for the USBR 24 Month Study released two weeks from now. It is also quite bad, the question now being is it even bad enough to match reality:
The "official" forecast now has a 70% exceedance of just 950 kaf. In other words, there is a 30% chance the run off will be the lowest ever. And a 10% chance it is only 500 kaf!
Up thread there has been discussion about whether the models used for this forecast are potentially underestimating a year like this which has no analog in history. It seems like there should be well over a 50% chance this is the lowest run off ever, it is hard to imagine how we avoid that in fact given the snowpack is half the lowest ever seen. Though, at this point, it almost doesn't matter if it is even lower than these numbers - they are so small that changing them upward or downward really amounts to "small change" in the end. The numbers are so low that altering them by 50% more or 50% less still results in about the same amount of catastrophe.
So at this point I'd say any future changes to SWE or the forecasts are almost irrelevant to the lake level. Bad is written in stone at this point. The big variable is what does USBR do with releases, which we will all await with baited breath...
I hope that is accurate, it sounds true. Why else would they spend 70 million dollars digging if it ends up high and dry bu the time they are done?
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