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Bay Area Weather: New Radar Better Predicts Just Where and Just How Much Rain to Expect

/in /by /San Jose Mercury Newsby By Lisa M. Krieger

As a wet and windy storm blows in off the Pacific, a new San Jose-based radar system is watching it with the greatest precision ever, estimating rainfall in individual communities rather than providing a more general Bay Area forecast.

Discrete patches of incoming moisture are detected by a humming “X-band” radar unit on the rooftop of a treatment plant owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, predicting precipitation and flood risk with much greater accuracy than current technology. Four more units will be phased in over the next five years for the Peninsula, East Bay and North Bay.

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Sierra Snowpack at 99% of Normal with More Powder on the Way

/in /by /SF Gateby By Steve Rubenstein

The weather, up to its usual surprises, brought summer sunshine to the Bay Area this week in the dead of winter at the same time that Sierra snowpack figures for Northern California were measured and found to be practically normal.

The snowpack in the northern reaches of the Sierra, which stretches from near the Oregon border to Lake Tahoe, was 99 percent of normal for mid-February, the California Department of Water Resources said. Statewide, the snowpack was 91 percent of normal.

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BLOG: 66% of Storm Runoff in California’s Bay-Delta Watershed was Captured in January 2016

/in /by /Switchboard (Natural Resources Defense Council)by By Doug Obegi

Recently, some legislators have been demanding that state and federal agencies – or Congress – overrule the decisions of agency biologists and scientists in order to increase the amount of water pumped out of the Delta, complaining that the state and federal water projects are not capturing most of the water from recent storms. Yet recent analysis by The Bay Institute shows that approximately 66% of the runoff in January 2016 was captured or diverted, with only one third of the unimpaired runoff actually making it through the Bay-Delta estuary. For the period of October 1st to January 31st, 60% of the storm runoff has been diverted or stored. Compare this level of diversions to the prevailing science, which shows that, to maintain a healthy river system, no more than 20% of its flows, on average, should be diverted.

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