For California, which has endured four years of extraordinary drought, the state’s wet season is off to an encouraging start.
High in California’s Sierra Nevada, the state’s mountainous spine, El Niño-driven storms have piled snow and the meltwater it represents to above-normal levels. At lower elevations, heavy rains are nudging the water in many depleted reservoirs back toward their historical averages.
An effort to renovate a small corner of the Salton Sea is moving forward near Calipatria at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge.
The sea is in trouble, slowly evaporating as it’s water sources are being diverted.
If allowed to dry up completely the shrinking sea could damage the Coachella Valley’s desert environment, health and economy.
Foothills water customers are being asked to tighten taps further and refrain from watering lawns for up to 10 days starting Feb. 29, while Metropolitan Water District of Southern California temporarily closes a La Verne treatment plant for infrastructure upgrades.
MWD is in the process of switching its Weymouth Filtration plant from a chloramine-based treatment method to ozonation, in which ozone injected into raw water creates bubbles that carry away pathogens and contaminants, spokesman Bob Muir said in an interview Friday.
It may be goodbye for El Niño and hello to La Niña.
The once-predicted “Godzilla” storm of El Niño has thus far turned out to be a little lizard in terms of Southern California rainfall, but weather experts on Thursday offered some encouragement to those pining for more wet stuff.
As the California drought continues despite recent rainfall, water agencies in the Santa Clarita Valley say that conservation is still essential and the drought is far from over.
Snowpack through January was “trending at 115 percent of normal,” but since February was dryer than usual, currently water inflow is about average, according to Mike Alvord, assistant general manager at Newhall County Water District.
Court adjudication of California’s groundwater basins is more often focused on resolving conflicts among water users and less on sustainable groundwater management, according to a UC Santa Cruz study commissioned by the State Water Resources Control Board.
The finding comes in “An Evaluation of California’s Adjudicated Groundwater Basins” scheduled for release today (Feb. 18).
An avalanche near Alpine Meadows ski resort struck a bus Thursday morning and pushed it 30 feet into a house after a storm passing through the Sierra brought nearly two feet of snow to resorts across the region, officials said Thursday.
The avalanche hit the bus traveling on Alpine Meadows Road in North Lake Tahoe, said Ron Carson, a spokesman with the North Tahoe Fire Protection District. No one was injured in the incident.
It isn’t a secret that California has recently experienced one of the worst droughts in over 100 years.
However, that changed this past month: Bay Area streets flooded, coastal properties were destroyed and traffic increased, as the region saw above-average levels of rain and snow in the region.
Record high temperatures and a dry spell in California the past week has “renewed concerns of early snowmelt” in the Sierra and “considerable long-term” drought impacts remain.
“In the core western drought areas of California and western Nevada, dry, warm weather during the period resulted in no change to this week’s drought depiction,” reports the U.S. Drought Monitor in its update released Feb. 18. “While much of the region has experienced favorable precipitation during the 2015-16 Water Year – and subsequent removal of the “S” (short-term) drought Impact Type – considerable long-term (L) impacts remain.”
Snow fell almost non-stop until late afternoon Thursday in the Sierra, luring people to its beauty and helping lead to highway backups.
But there was still not enough snow to satisfy thirsty Californians who want to hear that the drought is over.
