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Storms Are Making A Dent In California’s Drought; 7 Feet Of Snow Expected In Some Areas

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paige St. John, Louis Sahagun, Joseph Serna and Corina Knoll

A lull in a series of powerful winter storms gave Northern California a chance Monday to clean up from widespread flooding while also assessing how all that moisture is altering the state’s once-grim drought picture. A few big storms alone won’t end the six-year drought, but there were growing signs that the so-called atmospheric river was making a major dent. Officials released water from the Folsom Lake reservoir and several others as a flood control measure.

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Scientists Predict ‘Beneficial’ Rain From Atmospheric River

/in /by /The Sun (San Bernardino)by Michel Nolan

Well, we asked for it — sort of. We’ve gone from drought to deluge. It seems we are being tossed around in an atmospheric river in what is considered one of the worst West Coast flooding events in a decade. Yes, we needed the snow pack, full reservoirs, water for rivers, crops and forests. But I guess we need to be more specific — we didn’t want a fire hose trained on our state. We did not want flood alerts, evacuations, landslides and road closures, along with all sorts of advisories. We definitely did not want loss of life.

 

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OPINION: When LA Area Gets Rain, We Can’t Afford To Waste It

/in /by /Los Angeles Daily Newsby Cindy Montañez and Becky Hayat

Over the past couple of days, drought-stricken Los Angeles received about an inch of rain. But because so much of the Los Angeles area is paved, more than 3.8 billion gallons of that fresh rainwater was flushed into the L.A. River and out to the Pacific Ocean, carrying pollution and toxins along the way. As Southern California faces a sixth year of severe drought, we can’t afford to waste this precious resource. The new climate reality demands that Los Angeles get water-smart — and fast.

 

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California Storms Help Fill Reservoirs But Slow Ag Work

/in /by /Capital Press (Salem, Ore.)by Tim Hearden

Big rains in California have dumped more than a million acre-feet of water into the state’s reservoirs since Jan. 1 but this week stalled the Central Valley’s navel and mandarin orange harvests, state and industry officials say. The storms had added 1.1 million acre-feet of water to California’s reservoirs by Jan. 9 with more to come, according to state officials, while prompting the opening of the Sacramento Weir — a flood-control bypass around the city — for the first time since 2006.

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California Storm Floods: Mapping The Impact Across Northern California

/in /by /Curbed San Franciscoby Brock Keeling

The back-to-back storms that pummeled California since last weekend are part of an atmospheric river event that has brought major flooding and damage to parts of Northern California. On Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for San Francisco. Up in the North Bay, the Russian River is still at flood stage in Guerneville while the Napa River near St. Helena will most likely flood again.

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Farmers and Water Districts Hope Storm Runoff Can Help Replenish Underground Supplies

/in /by /The Fresno Beeby Robert Rodriguez

While some farmers lament the release of thousands of acre-feet of water from Friant Dam, others are putting it to good use: recharging groundwater supplies. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began releasing water from Millerton Lake to make room for a deluge of storm runoff. The move frustrated some farmers, who say spilling water into the river and eventually the ocean is a prime example of why the state needs to build a dam at Temperance Flat. Farming advocates are pushing for state and federal funding to build the $2.8 billion project.

 

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What Is The State Doing To Help With Flooding Along Cosumnes River?

/in /by /ABC 10 Newsby Ananda Rochita

What is the state doing to help with flooding along Cosumnes River? California Department of Water Resources says many of the levees are privately owned and the state doesn’t manage them. An official told us there hasn’t been any project improvements along the Cosumnes River in recent years because the land is privately owned not state owned. Department of Water Resources says it does provide assistance to fund projects for levee improvements as well as engineering help. An official said what the state has done is have a program available to help rather than go on private property.

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Bay Area Storm: More Rain and Snow Leave Drought Farther Behind

/in /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Aaron Kinney

Northern California continued to roar out of its prolonged drought Tuesday as yet another powerful storm blew in from the Pacific Ocean, drenching an already saturated Bay Area, filling some local reservoirs beyond capacity and creating dangerous white-out conditions in the northwestern Sierra Nevada. Shortly after noon, water began coursing down the Lexington Reservoir spillway for the first time since March 2011.

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California Floods Its Fields to Keep Its Cities From Flooding

/in /by /Wired (Boone, IA)by Nick Stockton

To see how close California is to being drowned by its recent winter storms, just look to the small crowd of spectators and TV newscasters gathered yesterday on the northwest side of the state capital hoping to watch state water managers open the gates of the Sacramento Weir. The weir, something between a dam and a levee, lets dangerously high water spill over its top into a long, narrow, floodplain filled with rice paddies, grain fields, and other row crops.

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California Gets Rains, But Drought Still Means Fewer Lawns In Future

/in /by /The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.)by Henry Gass

Deborah Butler spent three years apologizing for her lawn. After buying a corner property in Studio City with her husband over three years ago, they inherited a ragged front lawn they didn’t particularly want or need – not with a park across the street, and especially not amidst a five-going-on-six year drought. Now the former eyesore is curved and contoured around two water-absorbing dips called “bioswales,” and covered in green and silvery plants and trees that sprout from a thick layer of mulch. Ms. Butler doesn’t anticipate the drought-tolerant yard transforming again any time soon.

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