The 1 April snowpack survey is an important indicator of the amount of water the state will have in its reservoirs as the state's wet historically wet season winds down.
The state's Department of Water Resources described the unprecedentedly small 2014-15 winter snowpack – the amount of water reserves stored in snow – as "dismally meagre".
There are lots of natural hazards at the moment as we only have a 50-inch snowpack, which is half of normal for this time of year – so watch out for one another".
Pretty soon, a foot of powder had fallen on an existing 2-foot snowpack, and the next day, a lucky few hundred of us had the responsibility of defiling it.
Other fields include volcanoes monitoring (Di Traglia et al., 2013; 2014a; 2014b; Intrieri et al., 2013; Nolesini et al., 2013; Calvari et al., 2016), cultural heritage sites (Tapete et al., 2013; Pratesi et al., 2015; Nolesini et al., 2016; Frodella et al., 2016), glaciers and snowpack sinkholes (Intrieri et al., 2015).
Of 98 locations that are regularly monitored for snowpack, 66 were snow-free by mid-May.
Above 60 degrees, the snow tends not to stay on the slope in the first place; below 25 degrees, the snowpack will tend not to slide, however unstable it is.
With an annual average of 400 inches, the snowpack lasts well into April.
Higher rates of snow accumulation were found to mitigate the magnitude of post-depositional processing and loss of in the snowpack [19].
But Yosemite and the Sierra received much more rain this year, with the park showing 89% of snowpack as of April 1.
