Each month during the winter, our department conducts manual snow surveys in the Sierras. The event, used to measure water content in the snow and to calibrate the electronic sensors we have throughout the mountains, always attracts a crowd of news reporters -- sometimes for the good news, sometimes for the not-so-good.  

Today's survey was taken in the middle of a series of wet, juicy storms that added several feet of snow and brought us to about 80 percent of normal for this time of year.  

My co-worker Dale, who always takes great photos, shot these -- which I thought were especially wonderful. 

          

       Photos by Dale Kolke, Dept of Water Resources