The new year also brings the first official snow survey of the winter. And the results confirm that despite early storms, the snowpack is 62-percent of average in the northern sierra and 67-percent statewide. But Department of Water Resources Public Information Officer Chris Orrock says it’s still much better than a year ago when the first measurement was taken at the Phillips Station….

Orrock says it’s also encouraging that the statewide snowpack is already 35-percent of the April peak…

And Orrock says we should get a significant boost from several systems coming through Saturday through Wednesday, with the snow level as low as four-thousand feet. A DWR news release also states that climate change has shifted the balance of rain and snow, with rain falling at higher elevations than in the past. It says the last few years have shown how variable California’s climate has become, going from an historic drought to record precipitation and nothing in between.