© National Weather Service
A mind-boggling 751 inches of snow have pummeled the Sugar Bowl ski area near Lake Tahoe this winter. It's emblematic of a record season for precipitation in California's northern Sierra Nevada mountain range, and the abrupt end to a historic drought.
As of Thursday morning, the
northern Sierra had achieved its wettest water year in recorded history, the National Weather Service office in Sacramento
announced.
At eight representative weather stations in the northern Sierra, the average precipitation reached 89.7 inches (combining rain and melted snow), passing the previous record of 88.5 inches set in 1982-1983. And there's plenty of time to add to this record, as the water year, which began Oct. 1, continues until Sept. 30.
The precipitation has come practically nonstop since October. Every single month except November produced above-average amounts.
Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics,
calculated that the state of California has received the equivalent of 90-trillion gallons of water since October, the greatest volume on record.
In a tweet Wednesday, the Western Regional Climate Center documented more than a dozen individual locations, mostly in the Northern Sierra, having their wettest water years:
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