Benjamin Spillman

bspillman@rgj.com

An unusually warm and sunny February took a toll on the Sierra Nevada snowpack, leaving mountain snow lovers to hope for a comeback in March.

Measurements Monday at the Snotel site on Slide Mountain at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe showed a little more than 31 inches of water content in the snowpack. That translates to 96 percent of the median for the site.

It’s a number that looks good at first glance, but it’s coming after a month that was warm, sunny and had just one significant storm.

While the Slide Mountain site, which is situated at more than 8,800 feet, managed to retain coverage during the warm month lower level sites showed more melting.

Watch: Sierra snowpack took beating in February

Overall, the Truckee River Basin fell to 87 percent of median for the date for the first time this season the Tahoe Basin fell below 100 percent of normal, landing at 99 percent on Monday, according to Jeff Anderson of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We are definitely slipping,” Anderson said.

There is hope on the horizon, with the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center calling for colder-than-normal temperatures and greater-than-normal precipitation in the Sierra Nevada in the eight to 14-day forecast.

“The forecast looks good but forecasts can change,” said Chad Blanchard, federal water master in Reno. “We just have to wait for it to actually snow and get on the ground.”

February was a drastic change of pace for winter weather in the Sierra Nevada.

After December and January produced numerous cold, snowy storms the snowpack was above normal by the beginning of February.

On February 1 the snowpack at Mt. Rose was 124 percent of normal. The Lake Tahoe basin was 135 percent of normal and the Truckee River basin was 114 percent of normal.

“We started out pretty good in the early part of the winter and we dried out significantly,” Blanchard said.

The evidence bears out not only in the numbers posted by Snotel measuring stations but in observations by anyone who lives in or visits the region.

Snow is disappearing from the lower slopes and roadsides that just a few weeks ago were piled high with snowbanks have been reduced to muddy messes.

“You’ve certainly seen the snowmelt retreat up the mountains from Reno,” Anderson said. “If you look at the southern aspects a lot of those have burned off.”

With February in the books all hopes now turn to March.

The beginning of April is traditionally when water officials try to estimate how much water will be available for the coming summer.

That means March likely represents the last gasp for the winter of 2015-16.

It will take multiple, significant storms for the region to notch its first above average winter since before the western drought set in about five years ago.

March isn’t traditionally a huge snowfall month in the Sierra Nevada. But there are examples when a “miracle March,” has saved winter.

The winter of 1990-91 is among the most often cited. That season, which also happened during a drought, March delivered about 50 inches of snow in the Lake Tahoe area.

“The average March precipitation drops off significantly but we still can have really big events,” Blanchard said.