Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

Mother Nature smiles on Mono Lake

Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

The numbers are in: 14 inches of snow and 2.07 inches of water in the last 24 hours! It’s looking like the most precipitation in California, and it’s safe to say that this kind of precipitation in May is off the charts.

Mono Lake Committee consulting hydrologist Peter Vorster is literally jumping with joy: “In year four of this drought, it sure feels like Mother Nature is smiling down on Mono Lake right now.”

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Geoff and Jess carefully pour the melted snow gauge water into the measuring tube.
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There was too much water for our measuring tube so we split it up and combined the readings for a total of 2.07 inches of water from the storm. Photos by Arya Degenhardt.

Understatement of the year: we needed this.

Lisa is down at the lake measuring the level right now—we’re dying to know if the storm actually raised the lake level at all. We’ll report on that when we can, but in the meantime we’re all snow-giddy and happily shoveling everything from the sidewalks to the aspen trees. UPDATE: It was too choppy to read the lake level gauge accurately, so we’ll try again tomorrow.

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Looking out at Black Point from the lake level gauge with lake foam on the shoreline. Photo by Lisa Cutting.

Time will tell what this means for Mono Lake and Rush, Lee Vining, Parker, and Walker creeks, but at least this morning there is a temporary feeling of drought relief.

5 Comments

  5. We heard about the storms, but didn’t dare believe it would make a difference. This is such good news!