article_snippet.sent: For the first time in 65 years the California Department of Water Resources has found no snow during the California Department of Water Resources manual survey of the land at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada in early April.
article_snippet.sent: Gov. Brown observed its manual survey of the land at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada in early April on Wednesday, which found the lowest water level in the Sierra the Sierra Nevada snowpack since 1950 when records began.
article_snippet.sent: The fourth consecutive year of vanishing snow spells trouble as California depends on The fourth consecutive year of vanishing snow to melt into rivers and replenish reservoirs.
article_snippet.sent: What a difference a year makes: Spatial distribution of the total volume of water in the snowpack across the Tuolumne River Basin in California's Sierra Nevada mountains as measured by NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory is seen in images from March 25, 2015 (bottom) and April 7, 2014 (top) '
article_snippet.sent: In what were considered normal precipitation years, the meager snowpack supplied about 30 percent of California's water needs as it melts in the spring and summer.
article_snippet.sent: California's historically wettest winter months have already passed, and California's drought is now firmly rooted in California fourth consecutive year, reports AGWeb.
article_snippet.sent: Frank Gehrke, left, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the Department of Water Resources, and Gov. Jerry Brown walk across a dry meadow that is usually covered in several inches of snow as conducts the snow survey, near Echo Summit on Wednesday .
article_snippet.sent: In this April 1, 2014 photo, Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for California's Department of Water Resources, crosses a meadow still covered in snow as he returns from conducting the snowpack survey at Echo Summit, California .
article_snippet.sent: This 3-D composite image map of the Sierra snowpack released by NASA shows the deficit in the total volume of water contained within the Tuolumne River Basin snowpack from April 7, 2014 to March 25, 2015 .
article_snippet.sent: The Enterprise Bridge passes over full water levels at a section of Lake Oroville on July 20, 2011 (top) in Oroville, California, compared with August 19, 2014 (bottom)
article_snippet.sent: Officials said Wednesday the statewide snowpack is equivalent to 5 percent of the historical average for April 1 and the lowest for that date since California began record-keeping in 1950. '
article_snippet.sent: It is such an unprecedented lack of snow, it is way, way below records,' said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources.
highlights_snippet.sent: For the first time in 75 years the California Department of Water Resources has found no snow during the California Department of Water Resources survey of the Sierra Nevada in early April .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: the California Department of Water Resources images showing  
highlights_snippet.sent: the snowpack across the Tuolumne River Basin   show a marked decrease since early April .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: the California Department of Water Resources depends on no snow to melt into rivers and replenish reservoirs .
  