The arrow pointing to the x is the peak snowpack we want to get to. The black line is where we are. We’re not going to make it there.

In fact, our mountain snowpack is just barely deeper than last year’s low levels (the orange line). While we started with a bang in December, we also experienced the 2nd driest January on record (in Mazama).The ongoing dry conditions the last few years remind us that we live in a semi-arid valley that is highly dependent on mountain snowpack to sustain our river and aquifers that provide water to us all.We know the mountain snowpack is diminishing and our precipitation patterns are changing as a result of climate change.  Local climate scientist Amy Snover does a great job of explaining why a decreasing mountain snowpack affects us all in this video from MVCC’s Living River series.

*Both graphs are from NRCS’s very neat interactive mapping tool which you can check out here