Storm brings promise for irrigation season

Irrigation season, which starts April 1, got a big boost from last weekend’s storm.

Snow telemetry sites across the top of the Carson River Basin approached 110 percent of median, jumping 30 percent in four days, Natural Resources Conservation Service Hydrologist Jeff Anderson said on Monday.

“We definitely made a dramatic comeback, that’s for sure,” he said.

The entire Carson River Basin was at 108 percent on Tuesday morning.  The increased snowpack late in the season will help irrigation season in Carson Valley. The snowpack is essentially the only storage in the upper Carson basin.

Anderson said the runoff forecast issued later this week won’t capture a lot of that, because the storm occurred after the first of the month, but it will be included in the April 1 report.

Carson Valley residents receive their drinking water from the aquifer, not the river. However, if ranchers don’t have sufficient surface water to irrigate crops, those with supplemental water rights can pump groundwater to make up the difference.

The Carson Pass snow telemetry site showed 28.6 inches of snow water equivalent, which was above its median peak of 27.6 inches. Ebbetts Pass snow water was at 97 percent of median on Tuesday morning.

Anderson was scheduled to conduct a snow survey at Mount Rose snow telemetry site on Monday, but the road was closed due to the storm.

He said that the four-day average of 6.9 inches was the fourth largest increase on record.

“I looked at the records and only 16 storms had more than 6 inches and only three of them had more than the 6.9 inches this storm had,” he said. “That tells you the intensity over those days. The storm was among the strongest we’ve seen in the record.”

One reservoir that will benefit significantly is Lake Tahoe, which feeds the Truckee River, where a dam is located at Tahoe City.

“If Tahoe gets full, that’s a three-year water supply for users downstream,” he said.

One difference between this year and last year’s record winter is the soil moisture, which could result in increased runoff.

Anderson pointed out that Hurricane Hillary and other summer rain events helped moisten soils that will help make more efficient runoff.

“It’s really a wonderful story,” he said.

The status of the Carson River, which flows from the Sierra to the Carson Sink was a key topic at this week’s 2024 Carson River Watershed Management Forum.

Conducted by the Carson River Coalition in conjunction with the Carson Water Subconservancy District the forum looked downstream at the watershed’s water management needs.