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Comment by sverige | Hacker News Reader

If I'm reading the data correctly, there is no snowpack above Lake Oroville right now, so it's all about rain at this point.

https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/

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Looking at the map from the page you link to, I see significant amounts of snowpack at the stations above Lake Oroville: https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/webmap_beta/index.html#version...

We see the same thing in NOAA's regional snow analysis maps: https://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/?region=Sierras

Thanks. This data seems to settle it - I'm seeing 20, 30, 40 inches at various sites within the watershed, at elevations from 5150 feet to 6800 feet.

Oroville itself is at 900 feet altitude, but the Oroville watershed extends into the Sierra Nevadas, including alpine valleys at 5000 feet. The Sierras have record snowpack this year (150 inches in places, so I hear).

Approximate watershed is seen in the map at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_River

There isn't any snow left below 5,000 feet. Source: I'm in Reno at 4,415 feet.

Oroville is both north and west of where you are. Significant rain shadowing occurs east of the Sierra. and I think the "5000ft high" watershed number for Oroville may be low.

Yep all true. There's probably not any snow below even _6,000 or 7,000ft_ in the Sierras right now because the last storm, which was warm/rainy, melted it. This is another reason why the next storm won't put as much water into the reservoir.

I'm not sure where the snow is but it's not at 5000' in Plumas County this year. The ski and snowmobile club in La Porte is closed for lack of snow.

I'm having trouble pulling that map up, but I believe there's snowpack at 5500' and above right now, and there's a huge amount of land upstream of Lake Oroville that is above 5500'. My data is this: here's an Instagram tagged at Emigrant Gap (5200') taken four days ago.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQYzN3sA76u/

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