LAKE TAHOE — Light, fluffy snow may be great for those on the slopes, but hydrologists look for wetter, denser white stuff when it comes to raising Lake Tahoe's level.

“When you get out into this powder that sinks up to your waist when you step in it, that's great,” said Dan Greenlee, Water Supply Specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “It's really the wet sloppy Sierra cement that we want for our water supply and feeding Lake Tahoe next summer.”

The 30 inches of snow that fell during this past weekend's storm was only 6.5 percent water by volume, said Randall Osterhuber of the Central Sierra Snow Lab on Donner Summit.

“If you think of a very cold storm, there just is not as much water in the system as there might be in a warmer system,” said Frank Gehrke, Chief of California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program.

Currently the water content of the Lake Tahoe snow pack is about 59 percent of a 30-year average. Water content is measured daily by eight automated sites around the basin.

However, even though the storm did not bring in very “wet” snow, it was still good for the region, Gehrke said.

“The real key in terms of lake level and all the other water supply issues is whether or not we continue to get these storms,” he said.

According to the National Weather Service in Reno, a warmer storm is expected to bring a few inches of snow to the region on Thursday; with temperatures forecast to be between 20 and 30 degrees

Another major storm is expected this weekend for the Lake Tahoe Basin, and with temperatures as of Tuesday forecast to hover in the mid- to upper-20s and low 30s, heavier, wet snow could be in the near future.

— Sierra Sun reporter Greyson Howard contributed to this story.