KERN COUNTY, CA - Bad news for Kern County as the state's water crisis continues.
State water officials took a survey in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on Friday. Surveyors found the snowpack is at an all-time low.
The Kern County Water Agency says Friday's survey does not mean there will be an official drought. Officials said there's still time for more snow to accumulate.
But, if northern California doesn't get more snow by the next scheduled survey in February, it's bad news for the valley.
Surveyors found mostly bare ground when they tried to measure snow near south Lake Tahoe on Thursday. Manual and electronic readings showed the water content in the statewide snowpack at just 20 percent of average for this time of year. The winter snowpack in the northern and central Sierra provides about a third of the state's water supply.
This includes water for Kern County's farmland. At this rate, the state estimates it will be able to deliver just five percent of the water requested this year.
State water officials said at this point, the weather forecast doesn't look like it will up that allocation.
"Nothing in December. You know, we're probably looking at half of January with no precip," said Frank Gehrke, Chief of California Cooperatives for the Department of Water Resources. "You're starting to narrow down your possibilities. You know you're drawing to an inside straight, never a good policy."
The Kern County Water Agency declared a drought just before Christmas.
The agency is set to discuss the water issue with the board of supervisors next week, but the agency told 17 News Thursday they do not plan to make any recommendations to the board, just update the county on the state of local water resources.