Spring Break and Spring Snowpack

A mid-water year update

Hey, faithful readers: The Land Desk will be taking the rest of this week off as a spring break and to allow me to catch up on other work—and for you to catch up on your Land Desk reading. I’ve got a couple freelance deadlines coming up, plus I’m embarking on a new project with High Country News. So, there will be no Wednesday and Friday dispatches. The next dispatch will be on Monday April 11. But first, a couple of updates:

The water year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, is halfway over. And this is typically about when snowpack levels peak across most basins, with low-elevation areas melting out sooner and higher elevation spots usually accumulating snow for another couple of weeks. So it’s a good time for a mid-water year snowpack update.

I would describe the situation as mixed, which is actually a heck of a lot better than I expected.