Our latest storm brought a lot of snow to our mountains. And of course, more snow leads to more water.
The amount of snowpack we get every winter determines how much water we get as all that snow melts in the spring.
Experts are telling us that this year is going to be a great year for water.
"It's been incredible," said Andy Gebhardt, Director of Distribution Maintenance and Generation for Truckee Meadows Water Authority. "We're going to have good flows in the river at least for the next two, three years."
"And the great news today is that our snowpack in the Sierra, so the Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Carson, and Walker Basin, they're all above normal for this time of year for the first time this winter," added Jeff Anderson, Hydrologist for Natural Resources Conservation Service of Nevada.
Anderson says last weekend's snowstorm has added eight inches of water content to the snowpack, which is about a quarter of a normal winter's worth of snow.
He tells us just from the snow fall alone it has raised Lake Tahoe by four inches, making it 81% full.
"So that brought Tahoe to up to about just over a foot below its legal limits," said Anderson. "So, there's about a foot more room to gain."
One of the methods they use to measure the water content is using a snow pillow on the ground that acts as a scale for the snowpack.
"We often also put the snow tubes into the snow to take a core of the snow pack out and weigh the tubes with and without the snow to figure out how much water there was in the snow, so both of those techniques give you the same answer," he adds.
Truckee Meadows Water Authority tells us that even though Nevada is already in great shape from last winter, this past month has made our water supply even better.
"Starting of February, February 1st, Tahoe was projected to be half a foot below the rim. And then February, you know, we got a lot of good storms as recent as February 20th we were up just under 80% of the snow water equivalent and now, we're over 100%," said Gebhardt.
