Thanks to those avid snow-seekers known as “skiers,” you can see December’s huge snowstorms blanket the western United States all over again. The folks at Skiing Interactive Daily have compiled time-lapse satellite imagery from December 12–23, which shows the impressive buildup of snow at several of the West’s major ski areas.

Click here, wait for the page to load (be patient), press “play,” and be amazed.

The action for Mono Lake began on December 15 … pay close attention to the “Mammoth” tab as the snowpack calculation skyrockets. And remember, what happened at Mammoth happened at Mono Lake too! As we near the end of a dry January, it’s fun to look back at the big storms … and pray for more to come.

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…)

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…)

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…)

October 2010, the Mono Basin’s warmest October since 2005, set a new record for precipitation in Lee Vining: 3.74 inches! With data going back to 1988, last month beat the old record of 2.41 inches set in 1992 by 1.33 inches! It also beat the 1950-1988 October precipitation record from the Mono Inn, the previous home of our weather instruments (5 miles north). Median October precipitation in Lee Vining is 0.23 inches, usually our third driest month after June and July.

At Cain Ranch, just five miles south but slightly drier, 3.11 inches of rain set a new record going all the way back to 1931! (more…)

October 1, 2010 was the first day of the 2011 Water Year—Happy New Year! A Water Year in the Mono Basin runs from October 1 to September 30th. This lumps the winter’s precipitation into the same year as the following summer’s runoff, as well as the next year’s growing season.

The 2010 Water Year (October 1, 2009 — September 30, 2010) was near-normal (more…)

It has been an unusual summer for water. With just 104% of average runoff forecasted for the Mono Basin, sudden warmth the first week in June brought peak flows down the creeks more typical of a wet year. But despite the high flows in the creeks during June and July, the total volume is not representative of a wetter year.

Grant Lake Reservoir spilled from July 3rd until the (more…)

On Saturday July 3rd, Grant Lake Reservoir began spilling for the second time since the year 2000–it also spilled in 2006 after filling up in 2005.

Inflow is dropping as the melting snow runs out, although the warm weather is melting higher elevation snow, which could maintain high inflow for a few more days. Outflow is declining as well after peaking this morning at about 460 cfs (cubic feet per second). The spill peaked at 171 cfs on Thursday and Friday last week, but LADWP was still increasing the flow in the MGORD (Mono Gate One Return Ditch) until this morning. LADWP installed pumps at the spillway in order to ensure it would (more…)

Water cascades over the Lundy Lake Reservoir spillway on its way down Mill Creek to Mono Lake. Photo by Sarah Melcher.

I grabbed the flow meter and eagerly drove out to Lundy Canyon, where our beloved Mill Creek runs in its complicated course to Mono Lake. As the intern assigned to monitor Mill Creek this summer, I got to be one of the first people to see Lundy Lake Reservoir spill into the usually less-than-full creek bed.

Typically, Mill Creek is diverted at Lundy Lake to the SCE power plant. Some of that water is then diverted for delivery to water rights holders, but (more…)