We had a rainy night and morning.
I checked the nearest Snotel. That automatic weather station is at 4,700 feet, kinda behind a higher hill but the Weather Service has its reasons for the location of these things.
It finally hit normal! Funny how it did that but it has been scarily below normal for snow depth and water equivalent. Yeah, it didn't freeze there at 4700 feet last night. Imagine ... Anyway, whether that had something to do with a malfunction, I don't know but the dryness of the snow is measured and about when it first began to rain the machinery claimed the moisture of the snow dropped to 4%.
Well, that was wrong! Recorded snow depth leapt to like 12' Ha, Ha! Maybe it took some human intervention to get the moisture levels back up (instead of down) but it's a more reasonable 7+" water equivalent at that elevation and 100% of mid-December normal.
This has been our story for the last couple of years. Please ~ with our very dry summers ~ let mountain snow depth continue to be normal. If this part of the Northwest loses that winter moisture as we have been losing the rain and snow during other seasons, we would probably be well advised just to pack up and move.
Steve
Thankful