On Sunday, April 11th at 9:00pm watch Life Episode 6: Insects on the Discovery Channel. The incredible footage gives a close-up perspective of the lives of several insects around the world. Part of the episode focuses on Mono Lake’s alkali fly. The other episodes run on Sundays from March 21st to April 18th.

Mono Lake's trillions of alkali flies provide food for many species of birds, including California Gulls. MLC archive photo.

Mono Lake
On April 1st, 2009 (the beginning of this Runoff Year), Mono Lake was at an elevation of 6382.5 feet. It dropped about a foot by the end of the calendar year, and in January and February it rose half a foot, for a net loss of 0.6 feet since last April 1st. The half-foot rise in January and February is the largest 2-month wintertime rise since a 0.6 foot rise in January and February 2006. Mono Lake usually rises 0.1 foot in March–if it does that this month, we should be looking at an April 1st level of about 6382.0 feet. Click here for more on Mono Lake’s levels.

Lee Vining Precipitation
Here in Lee Vining, from October through February we’ve received 11.72 inches of precipitation, which is 108% (more…)

Beavers were introduced into Lundy Canyon long ago, and in recent years have been spreading to other nearby creeks such as Wilson Creek and DeChambeau Creek. Dead beavers have been seen more than once in the last several years along Mono Lake between Old Marina and Lee Vining Creek.

About three weeks ago we were informed by Dr. Roland Knapp of beaver sign along Lee Vining Creek below the diversion dam. Friday morning I took the photos found here–click on a photo to (more…)

Greg Reis stands knee-deep in fresh snow near the Mono Lake Committee's weather station. Photo by Elin Ljung.

After a one-day break in the storms—a day of just a few flurries and a night of wind-drifting snow—the snowfall has returned and it means business!

It started accumulating before 9:00 am this morning, and by 1:00 pm we had 3 inches of new snow and by 2:00 pm we had 4 more inches!!! These are amazing hourly rates and we need to keep a close eye on our weather instruments to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed. Our internet rain gauge is measuring water content up to 0.15 inches per hour. There is a delay because a heater has to melt the snow, and we have to break through any snow bridges that form over the heated gauge.

Highway 395 closed just after 1:30 pm between Mammoth and Bridgeport—the plows just weren’t able to keep up—and our staff got home to Mono City (7 miles north of our office in Lee Vining) just in time. We are expecting high winds this afternoon and evening to bring blizzard conditions.

The highway will probably be closed overnight according to the Mono County Office of Emergency Services.

Ever since Bartshe wrote about a NASA study that shows Mono Lake is warming rapidly, we have done additional analysis, discussed it with Mono Lake experts, and tried to figure out what it means.

Dr. David Herbst of the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory says that the NASA results “are consistent with elevated summer minimum air temperatures that have previously been documented.” He also found that Martis Creek, a creek north of Lake Tahoe with the best temperature record in the Sierra, has warmed 2 degrees C since the mid-1970s (in June, July, August). Nearby (more…)

Howard Schekter, our local Mammoth weatherman, says

“THIS EVENT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO APPROACH OR RIVAL THE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1998 EL NINO EVENT IN CENTRAL CA AND THE JANUARY 1995 TIME FRAME FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.”

The National Weather Service in Reno has issued a Special Weather Statement that includes

“THE COMBINATION OF SNOW AND WIND IN THE SIERRA MAY CAUSE SIGNIFICANT TRAVEL DELAYS AND PERIODIC ROAD CLOSURES.”

The following email we just received from the USGS through our contacts with the Forest Service (original email appears to be from Chris Haile with CalFire). It has been reposted on several other blogs (more…)

I just read Bartshe’s post about the NASA study showing that Mono Lake’s July-September surface temperature warmed about 4 degrees from 64 degrees F in 1992 to 68.3 degrees F in 2008. The article suggests comparing the water temperatures with air temperatures, and I have just done that with the results shown below. (more…)

When the temperature drops close to zero, some interesting things happen to the flowing water in Mono Lake’s tributaries. I shot this video on December 8th at Rush Creek right after measuring the flow in a side channel. Ominous cracking noises in the silent below freezing air preceded this dramatic burst (more…)

On November 12th, 2009, at approximately 5:30 pm, the roar of hail on metal roofs resounded throughout the town of Lee Vining. It hailed really hard for about an hour, followed by a transition from 1/4 inch hail to smaller and smaller hail until it turned to snow by 8:00 pm. The snow continued until around 9pm. The next morning we measured about (more…)