SNOWPACK: Washington's mountain snowpack [above] average

“For all those residents who have been digging out their driveways and sidewalks for the past month, the notion of an average snowpack must seem like pure hydrological nonsense,” said Pattee, whose office is in Mt. Vernon.

Surveys at high-elevation sites help water managers assess supply for the summer and aid in stream flow forecasts, he noted.

“Typically, 50 percent of the total annual snow accumulation has fallen by mid-January,” Pattee said. “Areas with less snow now will most likely have less runoff in spring and summer, assuming typical weather patterns continue.”

Pattee said the big snows of December helped reduce a previous statewide snowpack deficit by nearly 80 percent. Before the storms hit, the snowpack was between 24 percent to 40 percent of normal.

“In just a few weeks, we’ve closed the gap and now stand at 106 percent statewide,” he said.

CO2 scam spawns yet another round of extremely lengthy meetings - The Road to an alleged Copenhagen climate pact

Next stop on the road to the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December is Bonn in March (29 March-8 April).
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A second, larger, more important meeting takes place in Bonn on 1-12 June. About 2,000 participants are expected. They will whittle down and rationalise the draft agreement, producing what one UN source describes as "the first draft of the real thing". A European Union suggestion for ministerial participation, to give the meeting added weight, has received little support.

Another two-week meeting – the date for which will be fixed in March – will be held in September or October. With the summit looming, this meeting will be more "technical", focusing on reaching agreement on specific words and phrases and on narrowing options in the text.

If progress is slow, another technical meeting might be called either in August or October.

Two other key events will feed into the process: the G8 summit of industrialised countries on the Italian island of La Maddalena in June (with Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea in attendance), and a one-day heads of state (or government) summit as a side-show at the UN General Assembly gathering in September.