By Tuesday, up to about 202 inches of snow had fallen at the University of California’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory in Berkeley, Thunder Pass east of Sacramento.

It’s a ton of snow and was desperately needed, but Andrew Schwartz, chief scientist and station administrator of Sierra Snow Laboratory said they will need more.

Researchers from the lab said it was the snowiest December on record and the third snowiest month overall.

The highest month was January 2017, with 238 inches dropping, and enough snow is unlikely over the next three days for the record to be broken.

The records here have reached as far back as 1970.

Located at high altitudes, skimmed-off snow will act as a natural reservoir, easing the drought, accumulating water for the winter months, and then releasing it again gradually during the melting season in spring.

Schwartz said he noticed that what once fell as snow has now fallen as rain.


University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, (wikipedia)


University of California

The University of California is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, (wikipedia)

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Oroville Dam

Oroville Dam is an earthfill embankment dam on the Feather River east of the city of Oroville, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of the Sacramento Valley. At 770 feet high, (wikipedia)