Following a wet October and a dry November, there were only 3 days in December with a trace of precipitation in Lee Vining. Going into January, the season was at only 33% of average when measured at the NOAA rain gauge at the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore. 1989, 1990, 1993, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 were all years with similar or drier autumns, adding up to almost 1/3 of the 24 years on record at our weather station. But it was the first half of January that threw this season into the remarkable category.

On January 17, 2012, Tioga Pass finally closed for the winter as storm clouds gathered on the horizon. The only other time in history—going back to 1933—when it closed in January was when it closed on New Year’s Day 2000.

On January 21st, 2012 (more…)

Now available to download from the Mono Basin Clearinghouse is the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power’s May 2011 Mono Basin compliance report. This annual report discusses previous year and current year operations and monitoring for the State Water Board-ordered requirements of the city of Los Angeles’ water rights licenses. Highlights are (more…)

April in the Mono Basin was near-average, but slightly on the cool, dry, and windy side when compared to recent years. Although the high temperature on April 1st was 72 degrees F, the last two weeks struggled to get out of the 50s. It was our windiest April since 2004, with an average wind speed of 4.9 mph in Lee Vining. The 58 mph high-wind-gusts this April and last April were not out of the ordinary. You can see our April weather log here.

This year April brought wind, cool temperatures, and average precipitation to the Mono Basin. Photo by Arya Degenhardt.

Lee Vining precipitation in April was (more…)

Every April, after the April 1st snow surveys are in, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) issues a preliminary April 1st runoff forecast, and then a final forecast update in May. The April 1st forecast for the Mono Basin for the April 1 2011–March 31 2012 runoff year is 147% of average!

We always get asked why the runoff forecast is different than the snowpack—if the snowpack is 169% of average, shouldn’t the runoff be the same? The simple answer is that the snowpack is extremely variable, and some of it soaks into the ground or sublimates into the air—so not all the water in the snow becomes runoff.

Since the State Water Board decision in 1994, only two years have had more than 147% runoff (more…)

Now available on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse are the 1996 restoration plans that have guided restoration in the Mono Basin since they were implemented under Water Rights Orders 98-05 and 98-07 in 1998. Not everything in these plans was ordered as written—to understand the current restoration requirements, a (more…)

In December, after we posted links to papers by Ron Oremland with the US Geological Survey, Ron sent us a few more references. These are now available here on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse. He also included a few references from lakes with similarities to Mono Lake, such as Big Soda Lake in Nevada and Searles Lake, California.

This brings us to 40 scientific papers or abstracts related to Mono Lake or arsenic that can be downloaded from this page.

Mono Basin March 1st snow surveys aren’t all in yet, but so far surveys in the Lee Vining Creek drainage have been completed. In percent of the April 1st average snow water content, Tioga Pass was 105%, Saddlebag Lake was 110%, and Ellery Lake was 128%. This averages 114% for April 1st and 134% for March 1st.  Statewide, so far the totals are 109% for April 1st and 124% for March 1st, and ranging from 66% for the Scott River to 225% for the Tule River (March 1). The basins adjacent to Mono (more…)

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…)