New York Times: Along Highway 50 in the Sierra Nevada, elevation 6,820 feet, a California winter ritual unfolded here on a recent morning. In the snow-blanketed meadow of a local homeowner’s backyard, reporters representing news organizations from across the state followed a man on skis who kept plunging an aluminum tube into the snow. Leading the pack was Frank Gehrke, California’s chief snow surveyor, the man responsible for measuring the Sierra Nevada’s snowpack, the source of a third of this state’s water supply….

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