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 homeowners 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, Californias chief snow surveyor, the man responsible for measuring the Sierra Nevadas snowpack, the source of a third of this states water supply....