Hey Mel....

“What's the snow pack
like over there on your side of the mountains????
It seems like we have had storm after storm ever since the weather
man said there were no major storms predicted for the next six weeks.
LOL!!!”

“You rang?

I think we got a better weather pattern than you did!
Most of the precip were west side events.
Most of our storms have consisted of cold, dry snow; it has a very low water content.
The weather has sucked consistantly since the beginning of February, but out of all that time we only accumulated about 10 feet of snow.
Check out this link

http://web.ladwp.com/~wsoweb/Aqueduct/snow/PrecipConditions/laprecip.htm

For us to catch up to the "average" we would need to get 13 more feet of snow in the next two weeks.
It ain't gonna' happen.
That's an El Nino pattern.
So far this year there's only about 23 inches of water content in the snow.
In an El Nino year, there would be twice that!
When that happens, the higher backcountry doesn't melt out until the end of August, if at all!”

“Pardon......
It's 29 inches now.
I live between Mammoth Pass and Big Pine Creek.
Most of the major east side passes to the JMT should be hikeable this year (except extremely angled north facing canyon slopes) by the end of June.
Yippie!
I is wired!”

“Can we go NOW? I want to go NOW! NOW! oh, please?! NOW! PLEASE!”

“Well get your skinny ass up here!
Fishing season opens in 48 days!”

“Is skinny ass good bait?”

“OW! I feel them biting already!”

“It depends on who's doing the biting.

You care to find out?”

“Great News! I know we could use the water but I didn't really want to carry an ice axe and crampons in mid July :)

We will be heading out
July 14th, hopefully
the rivers and streams will no longer be swollen with snow melt and a tad bit easier to cross.

Thanks Mel

Michael”

“No drought worries.
The reservoirs are full.
Only those who use air conditioners in the major cities will be hating life this summer.

Michael?
Michael who?
Tell me more about your trip:
sierramel@qnet.com”

“Mel, I'll keep my eyes closed.”

“I appreciate mel's quote marks around "normal". One of my peaves is people referring to anything about California weather as "normal" when what they really mean is "average". Just about anything is normal.”

“If you want snow pack info go to cdec.water.ca.gov click on snow courses then the month. These courses are up dated around the first of the month Feb-May. Also many of these sites are automatic, if you click on station and then enter the station ID you can get current data including temp by the hour.”