The the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service says the Snow-Water Equivalent around Lake Tahoe is 29 percent of normal.
“I would say this is a strong F in terms of grades.”
The agency’s Water Supply Specialist Jeff Anderson says, January is supposed to be the wettest month, so a dry January essentially means a fourth year of drought. That's unprecedented in the 100 years of record-keeping in the Tahoe area.
“You drive around the lake and there are all these boat docks that are sticking out of the lake and there is hardly any water under the dock and that is because of a cumulative dry year after dry year after dry year and now after another dry year. So the effects are cumulative.”
Anderson says, to fill Lake Tahoe would take the equivalent of 59,000 football fields covered in a foot of water. In a typical year Tahoe gets twice that and Anderson says there is still a lot of winter left.
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