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Each winter, California officials trudge up the Sierra Nevada to measure the snowpack, with news cameras watching closely. Last year, there was a thick blanket of white. This year, the blanket had turned to a crunchy brown.

“We would like to have had more snow,” said Grant Davis, the director of the Department of Water Resources, after officials put the official measurement of “snow water” at 0.4 inches. In some areas, the snowpack was as low as 3 percent of normal. Across the Sierra, snowpack is at 24 percent of the historical average.