Read the transcript for this report below.
ELIZABETH ARAKELIAN, HOST: This week the Department of Water Resources announced California has its biggest snowpack since the 1950s. And as KVPR’s Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado reports, local water managers are seeing some surprising results of their own.
CRESENCIO RODRIGUEZ-DELGADO: High up in the Sierra Nevada, at an elevation of ninety-nine hundred feet, is Rattlesnake Creek. That’s where Randy McFarland, spokesperson for the Kings River Water Association says 233 inches of snow has been recorded on the ground. At this time last year, there was only 10 and a half inches.
RANDY McFARLAND: What a difference three months make. Because at Christmas time, all of the forecasts were saying we were going to have a fourth consecutive dry year.
RODRIGUEZ-DELGADO: Instead, along the Kings River watershed, all but one site measured have broken records for snow levels. McFarland says several avalanches were even spotted in the high Sierra during the recent snow survey. With so much snow accumulated from one storm after another, all that is left now is for that snow to melt and flow down the river.
McFARLAND: And that is coming. And it’s going to be a big one.
RODRIGUEZ-DELGADO: It’s expected 3.1 million acre feet of water will come down the Kings River between April and July. For KVPR News, I’m Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado.
