California is using lasers to precisely measure the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The state is paying Airborne Snow Observatories to collect the data. Elizabeth Carey tells the L-A Times the snow blanket covering the Sierra is so deep that the mountain range appears swollen and puffy. Carey and her team use laser pulses and spectrometers to provide a detailed picture of one of the biggest snow accumulations ever recorded in the state. Their measurements show the snowpack peaked in April holding approximately 40-million acre-feet of water. This equals nearly the total capacity of all the state’s reservoirs. The stage is now set for vast runoff, impacting river flows and low-lying communities.
