EL DORADO COUNTY (CBS) – It’s official. It’s dry in California.

California state water officials trekked to the Sierra Tuesday morning for the year’s first snow survey and confirmed that the mountain snowpack is among the driest for the date on record.

Tuesday’s manual and electronic readings put the snowpack’s statewide water content at 19% of normal for January 3.

A picture sent by CBS13’s Maria Medina shows a meadow of dry grass near Echo Summit off of Highway 50 where officials were conducting the survey.

Despite the dismal numbers, state water managers are cautiously optimistic.

“Fortunately, we have most of winter ahead of us, and our reservoir storage is good,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin.