(KRON) — This winter is the second-snowiest ever recorded by UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab in the past 77 years. Climate scientists were out measuring snowfall when the record was officially set on Monday.

“With 7.7 (inches) of snow over the last day, ’22/’23 has passed ’82/’83 as the 2nd snowiest season since the CSSL was built in 1946!” the snow lab wrote on Twitter.

The snow lab said total snowfall for this season is now 56.4 feet (677 inches). California has been drenched by 14 atmospheric rivers since December, according to the National Weather Service.

Before this winter can become the snow lab’s No. 1 snowiest-ever on record, it needs to break 1952’s snowfall total of 812 inches. “Still far from #1 but we’ll get closer over the next week,” the snow lab wrote.

Data courtesy UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab

The snow lab is located in the mountains of near Donner Peak west of Lake Tahoe. It’s the only continuously manned snow research outpost in the Western United States.

Daily records from CSSL and monthly snow-depth measurements in the Sierra Nevada provide vital data for state and federal water managers.

A snowblower removes snow in Tahoe City, Calif. on March 14, 2023. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

UCB CSSL lead scientist Andrew Schwartz said, “The benefit of having us up here is that during storms, we continue manual measurements. There still isn’t really a unified way of accurately measuring new snowfall, so the best way that we really have is to go out and put a pole in the middle of it and measure it by hand with rulers.”

Like December and January, March is also proving to be a super-soaker for California. Two atmospheric rivers made landfall between March 9-15.

“These ARs were characterized by the transport of very warm, moist air from the tropical North Pacific. High freezing levels limited snowfall accumulations below 7,000 feet in both storms,” forecasters with the Center for Wester Weather and Water Extremes wrote.

Water is released from Lake Oroville on March 19, 2023. (Image courtesy California Department of Water Resources)

Currently, the Northern Sierra snowpack is 178 percent of normal, Central Sierra is 227 percent, and Southern Sierra is 272 percent, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

The size of the snowpack determines water flow into the state’s rivers, streams and reservoirs in the spring.