El Nino weakening '16 .. effects on summer snow?

I doubt we’ll be getting a lot of late spring/early summer storms but it could still dump a fair amount of snow in the next 2 months or so which would mean snowy passes for early season hiking. June trips might be pretty snowed in especially in the northern Sierra, though at some point I heard speculation we might have a warm spring which could melt things off faster than usual (but don’t take that as gospel).

Basically, going to be a lot snowier than it was the past couple of years but it probably isn’t going to be a huge huge snow year in general.

Yes, it could mean the snow will be gone earlier and the high country accessible earlier without snow travel. Bad news for the state drought but to be honest I’m hoping for a quick and early melt off so I can enjoy the sierras mosquito free as early as possible.

The CDEC site shows you the current picture.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/swcchart.action

The website designers deserve a lot of credit for a superb graphical representation of the data.  The solid pale blue is the average;  the dark blue line is where we are this year;  and then you can select and add in any other prior year for comparison by ticking boxes at the top.   The last big snow year 2010-11 is an interesting one to add in, as below (the red line) because it shows the potential for heavy storms even in late March.

Bottom line:
Unknowable.
No one can dependably forecast the future.
The factors are not only snowfall, but also temperatures.
Stay tuned.
I see a lot of rain forecast for March… but, again, not sure how dependable that forecast is… and… if they are warm storms there will not be so much snow and only up high.

Billy

So far in the last 4 months, which is our ‘rainy season’ precipitation is 62% of average for the lower desert in so cal.