Whewhoo! The watermongers have numerical backup for what the oldtimers have been saying for a month or so, we are having as good a snowpack in the mountains around the state as we've had for at least six years.

Of course it will take a few years of normal to more than normal snowpack to raise the groundwater and the like, but it should be easier to keep this year's darned garden from rattling prematurely in the dry desert wind.

A farmer in the still less-than-normal-snowpacked north of the state, Charles Holmgren, had an interesting perspective on all of the charts, data and analysis available on the web, "I think I'm better off living in ignorance than having all this technology available to me." While it's nice to know exactly what's going on sometimes, too much grist for the worry-mill can drive one batty. All this electronic numerology still can't coax water from the sky for an anxious farmer.