The Mono Basin’s wet weather suddenly ended January 3rd, and aside from 0.16 inches of precipitation on January 30th, there was no measurable precipitation until February 16th! That is 27 dry days in a row, then one day of precipitation, followed by another 16 dry days! Total January precipitation in Lee Vining added up to (more…)

After 28 years of annual gull research on Mono Lake’s islands, you might wonder if there are any unanswered questions still out there. After reading PRBO’s 2010 report on the gull research (you can download the report here), the answer is clearly “yes”—and some of those questions were answered this year.

First, the results from the counts done every year. The 2010 California Gull population at Mono Lake was (more…)

Late afternoon sunshine lights up Mono Lake's islands. Photo by Elin Ljung.

It was a remarkable December for precipitation, as well as snowfall at the higher elevations. Following a rainy October and a snowy November, December 2010 brought most areas of the Mono Basin and Owens Valley very close to seasonal average precipitation and snowfall—with the majority of the wet season left to go! (more…)

From Friday through Monday a very wet storm dropped copious amounts of rain and snow, totaling 5.66 inches of water content (in about 20 inches of snow) in Lee Vining, 2.93 inches at Cain Ranch, and 11.5 inches at Gem Pass. Snow levels were between 6,000 and 8,000 feet Friday through Sunday. Since Sunday night when the cold front (more…)

GFAJ-1 bacteria.

Ron Oremland with the US Geological Survey has been studying elements and microbes in Mono Lake for a long time. Staff with the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve and the Mono Lake Committee have been in contact with him in order to help the interpretive partnership at Mono Lake (National Forest Scenic Area, State Natural Reserve, and Mono Lake Committee) develop interpretive materials to explain NASA’s arsenic bacteria discovery to the public.  You can read 24 scientific papers on arsenic and Mono Lake (more…)

Hot … er, cold … on the heels of the rainiest October on record, at our Lee Vining weather station, the Mono Lake Committee measured 21.3 inches of snow—the most snowfall in November since 1994! Almost all the snow fell between the Saturday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This resulted in lots of traffic accidents due to the slippery roads combined with holiday traffic.

The total precipitation for October and November was (more…)

Thanks to the Mono Lake Committee’s efforts to save Mono Lake starting in 1978, the lake still exists today and is available for scientific discoveries such as the incredible finding NASA announced yesterday. Geoff McQuilkin, the Committee’s Executive Director, had a few words to say to our local media about the discovery.

And don’t miss viewing fantastic scenic Mono Lake film footage from the Mono Lake Committee’s film.

Thursday was my last day in the field before a well-advertised storm was to drop 1–3 feet of snow in the Mono Basin. As I drove down to Rush Creek, the winds were picking up, snow was blowing off Sierra peaks, and lenticular clouds graced the late-afternoon skies.

Rush Creek bottomlands, a day before the storm hit.

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) had just lowered the flows in Rush Creek and Lee Vining Creek, and I was checking to see if certain side channels were still flowing, as well as checking on a few other things before the expected deep snow made travel to the streams difficult. (more…)

Several new items have been added to the Mono Basin Clearinghouse Website, www.monobasinresearch.org. (more…)

In September, the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District released its Reasonable Further Progress Report for the Mono Basin PM-10 State Implementation Plan. You can download the 17-page PDF file from the Mono Basin Clearinghouse Website. The report summarizes progress since the last update in 2007 (the previous reports can be downloaded as well).

During the first six months of 2010, dust storms emanating from the exposed lakebed of Mono Lake exceeded federal air quality standards sixteen times (17 in one year would be a new record). The highest concentrations of PM-10 dust were measured in 2009, at almost 100 times the federal standard the highest concentration ever measured. (more…)