San Francisco and parts of California have been pounded with rain and vexed by flooding and power outages in recent days, but there’s a silver lining to the storm clouds: The state’s alpine snowpack is verging on the average levels for this winter. The update is especially welcome news following this season’s early months, marked by less-than-average snowfall. The snowpack is now around three-quarters of average with the recent precipitation. This winter has been accompanied by an El Niño weather pattern, characterized by warmer-than-average sea temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. This can cause warm, wet storms to be flung eastward from the Pacific Ocean across the nation.

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• San Francisco Chronicle: Tahoe ready for season’s best skiing after 4 feet of fresh snow
• Action News Now: Water releases from Oroville Dam’s Spillway stop on Wednesday
• CBS – Sacramento: Recent storms improve California’s snowpack and reservoirs