The only good news is that the melt hasn’t started in earnest yet. The snow pack in the Sierra’s sublimates 1% per day. So every day the pack goes without melting significantly buys some relief. There is also one interesting aspect that I have not seen discussed outside of the Desert Research institute meetings. The freeze state of the ground is very key in how the runoff occurs. If the ground was hard frozen down to a significant depth then the run off characteristics are very different than if it was ready to absorb more moisture. General consensus is that the ground was not frozen hard in most areas prior to the snow starting in earnest. We shall see.
I had no idea the sublimation loss was that high.
It’s amazing that the east side is so dry.