SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Water Resources, which is preparing to conduct its second snow survey of the year later this week, said that while it's been a dry January the state's critical snowpack remains above average.

DWR will conduct its second manual snow survey of the winter on the morning of Friday, Jan. 28, at Phillips Station on Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe.

Electronic readings indicate that snowpack water content has changed little this month, so far gaining only about an inch since Jan. 1, the agency said.

The water content is 79 percent of the April 1 seasonal average, which DWR said compares to an average reading of 55 percent taken on Tuesday.

January has been unusually dry after the heavy storms of October, November and December, recording only about 13 percent of average precipitation for the month, DWR reported.

“Our always-changing weather reminds us that we must always practice conservation,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin.

“We’re still optimistic we will have a good water supply year, but we’re only halfway through the winter and still face uncertainty about delivery restrictions as well as the weather,” Cowin added.

DWR estimated it will be able to deliver 60 percent of requested State Water Project (SWP) water this year. The estimate will be adjusted as hydrologic and regulatory conditions continue to develop.

In 2010, the SWP delivered 50 percent of a requested 4,172,126 acre-feet, up from a record-low initial projection of 5 percent due to lingering effects of the 2007-2009 drought. Deliveries were 60 percent of requests in 2007, 35 percent in 2008, and 40 percent in 2009.

The last 100 percent allocation – difficult to achieve even in wet years due to pumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish – was in 2006, the agency reported.

The SWP delivers water to more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland.

DWR said the mountain snowpack provides approximately one-third of the water for California’s households, industry and farms as it slowly melts into streams and reservoirs.

Manual surveys are conducted up and down the state’s mountain ranges on or about the first of January, February, March, April and May. The manual surveys supplement and provide accuracy checks to real-time electronic readings as the snowpack builds, then melts in early spring and summer. April 1 is when snowpack water content normally is at its peak before the spring runoff.

California’s reservoirs are fed both by rain and snowpack runoff.

Most of the state’s major reservoirs are above normal storage levels for the date, the agency said.

Lake Oroville in Butte County, the SWP’s principal reservoir, is 102 percent of average for the date, which DWR said puts the reservoir at 67 percent of capacity. Remaining winter weather will determine whether it fills to its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity.

Lake Shasta north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is at 112 percent of average, or 76 percent of capacity, DWR said.

Statewide snowpack readings are available on the Internet at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/snow/DLYSWEQElectronic . Reservoir level readings may be found at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action .

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