More About Mono Jim
An Energy Bridge of Water Links
Mammoth Lakes to Los Angeles, California
Posted
October 2012 - In the
fall of 2012,
El Niño and La Niña global weather systems
battled to a draw. Now it is anybody’s guess if this
will be a big snow season in California’s
Sierra Nevada. On Monday October 22, a friend in
Mammoth sent pictures of the season’s first snowfall
at
Mammoth Lakes. After an extreme lack of snow at
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area last winter, locals like
Phil are hoping that snowstorms will visit again
soon.
In
August 2012, I visited Mammoth Lakes for the first
time since the 1990s. I was surprised to see how
little the core of the town had changed. Still,
rampant development of the sub-alpine meadows around
the edge of town looked unsustainable to me. In
2012, the
town went bankrupt. At the same time, the Los
Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) made
plans to exert its
Mammoth Creek water rights. As has happened
several times before, Mammoth headed deeper into an
economic recession.
During the winter of 2011-2012, Mammoth Lakes
experienced the economic ripple effect of
ski area layoffs. With the semi-permanent
closure of June Mountain Ski Resort in 2012, it
will take more than one great snow season for Mono
County and its economy to rebound. Still, as the
town of Mammoth Lakes goes, so goes Los Angeles. As
a persistent western drought continues, few in Los
Angeles stop to think how much of their water
originates in Mono County.
Collectively,
we spent the past fifty years moving Los Angeles to
Mammoth Mountain. Now, over-development and
under-supply threaten water sources for both city
and town. Perhaps a good 2012 – 2013 snow season
will allow us to ignore both the
economic and environmental realities for yet
another year. Go Sierra snow!
Mount Whitney is Now Eleven Feet
Higher; Mammoth Mountain is Ever-Drier
Posted May 2013 - In 1959, I first visited
Mammoth Mountain, California and the Sierra
Nevada, the range within which that mountain
resides. On the way north from Los Angeles, we could
see
Mount Whitney, which at 14,494 feet in elevation
was the highest peak in the continental U.S. In
summer 2012, when I made my most recent visit to
Mammoth Lakes, Mount Whitney had grown to 15,505
feet in elevation. Was the Sierra Nevada changing
that rapidly?
The
answer to that question is, “Yes” and “No”. If
Mount Whitney gained more than a fraction of an
inch in those fifty-three years, I would be
surprised. What changed is scientists' ability to
estimate the true shape of the
oblate spheroid we call Earth. With ever more
accurate
satellite data, they can now accurately peg Mt.
Whitney within a worldwide elevation database.
Geologically, little has changed in the Sierra
Nevada during those five decades.
During that same time, what has changed in the
Sierra Nevada and throughout much of the Western
U.S. is the weather. The two words that come quickly
to mind are,
“warmer” and “drier”. Add to those adjectives,
the term, “less
predictable”. Winter storms can still hit with
what feels like vengeance. Without notice, in
November 2011 an
unprecedented windstorm toppled expanses of
forest without notice. Although a typical
night-skier at Mammoth Mountain may feel the
security of the nearby lodge, a hiker on the
Mount Whitney Trail that same night might face
death from exposure.
In
the 1960’s, snow at Mammoth Mountain seemed as
reliable as clockwork. Snowstorms started in October
or November, followed by an inevitable succession of
winter storms. By Easter time each year, it could be
sunny and warm on the slopes or cold and snowy. “Sierra
cement”, as we called the spring snow, could
fall one day after sunshine. In those days,
snowmaking equipment did not exist in the Central
Sierra Nevada. Most years, there was good skiing
until Memorial Day. Even into the late 1980's, the
mountain often remained open for skiing through the
Fourth of July weekend.
Gradually, yet inexorably, the
weather patterns changed. In the late 1970’s,
all of California experienced an
extreme drought. First, the Golden State turned
brown and then the skies turned
black with smoke from ever-larger wildfires. An
entire generation of toddlers learned not to flush
the toilet unless necessary. Restaurants stopped
serving water, unless requested. Auto repair
facilities stopped offering complimentary car
washes. California reservoirs were at an all-time
low. Then, after several years of drought, heavy
snow returned to the Sierra Nevada. Almost
immediately,
water usage climbed back to pre-drought levels.
“El
Niño”, and his sister, “La Niña” were to blame for
California’s erratic weather, or so we were told.
When the fisheries off the coast of Peru experienced
higher December ocean temperatures, California would
soon feel the effects of drought. “El Niño”, in this
case, referenced the supposed December birthday of
the “Christ Child”. Although there is no record of
Jesus having a sister, if cold ocean temperatures
arrived near Peru, “La Niña” heralded cold, wet
winters in the mountains of California.
In the early 1980’s, the media began mentioning the
“Greenhouse Effect” and later, “Global
Warming”. “El Niño” events connected weather
systems in both the Southern and Northern
Hemispheres, it seemed. Yet the transport or
communications mechanisms between Peru and
California were puzzling. The milder term, “Climate
Change” had not yet gained politically correct
usage. As scientists documented the
interrelationship of global weather and ocean
temperatures, two camps developed.
The
first camp was the “Believers”.
“If scientists tell us it is true, it must be true”,
the Believers said. The second camp was the “Deniers”.
“If scientists tell us it is true, there must be a
vast conspiracy, so believe none of what they say”.
Over time, a third camp arose, which I call
“Rationalists”. This group says, "Over time, if I
see it with my own eyes and feel it with my own
body; I can determine what is true and what is not".
In the 1960’s, the snow on Minaret Road was so deep,
that rotary snowplows created a two-lane canyon
leading to the ski area.
In the 2010’s, the snowplows still make their
circuits, but snow walls twenty feet high do not
occur. In recent years, the snowstorms have arrived
later in the fall and ended earlier in the spring.
Overall, the ambient temperature is higher and the
air is drier.
In
2012, I asked Plush
Kokopelli to spend the snow season at Mammoth
Lakes and to report what he found. Although the
first storms arrived late, during January and
February 2013 more snow fell.
Plush Kokopelli reported the possibility of a
good snow year in the Sierra Nevada. Then, in March,
things warmed up and it felt like spring in Mammoth
Lakes. By late April, after a few brief storms, the
snow season appeared to end.
In late April, the U.S. Forest Service plowed the
road around
Lake Mary. Although the road remained closed to
vehicular traffic,
Plush Kokopelli took a hike around the lake. On
that hike, he observed the ice begin to recede from
shore. Upon returning the next day, all of the ice
had melted, leaving open water where an ice field
had so recently resided. California Department of
Water Resources reports told us that as of May 2,
2013, the
Central Sierra Nevada snowpack, including
Mammoth Mountain, stood at twenty-three percent of
“normal”.
It
may not be rational to send
Plush Kokopelli to report on the weather from
Mammoth Mountain, but for me, “seeing
is believing”. The snow season appears to be
over and a hot, dry summer in the Sierra Nevada
awaits. Still, as of this writing, no one in
California is mentioning the word, “drought”.