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California Strawberry Growers Lose Thousands Of Berries To Recent Rains

/in , /by /Times-Standard (Eureka, Calif.)by Elaine Ingalls

Strawberry fields for now, not forever, are losing good berries because of recent rains. Dane Scurich, president of Scurich Berry Farms Inc. and a Driscoll’s strawberry and blackberry grower, said he expects to start cleaning up the damage from the weather in the next day or so, but can knock growers out of production for four to five days depending on the climate. He said the intense rain of the past week damages the berry itself because its delicate skin makes it subject to decay and loss in quality, the flower on the strawberry plant is likely also damaged.

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NorCal Reservoirs Approaching Capacity With More Snow In Sierra

/in , /by /KCRA 3 (Sacramento)by Brian Hickey

With more rain and snow in the forecast this week, managers continue to release water from Northern California reservoirs. Most lakes in the northern half of the state are approaching capacity with significant runoff still pouring in from the snowcapped Sierra crest. On Tuesday morning, Folsom Lake was at 95% of capacity and 118% of average for this time of year. The lake’s elevation was at 461.63 feet above sea level at 2 a.m. Tuesday, just 4.37 feet below the lake’s rim. Water was being released at nearly the same rate it was coming in to maintain the current water level.

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OPINION: Why Orange County And California’s Drinking Water Should Not Go To Waste

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Garry Brown

California is in a drinking water crisis. Across the state, residents pay billions of dollars for clean drinking water and we use this water only once. We drink the water, then it goes to coastal sewage treatment plants, which carry out various levels of sewage treatment, then gets dumped into the ocean through outfall pipes as partially treated sewage, harming the ecosystem in the area. Billions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into our California coast each day, and with it, billions of resident dollars are quite literally going to waste

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Fresh Rain And Light Snow Expected In San Diego County Tuesday Night

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by Gary Robbins

Another unseasonably cold Pacific storm will blow ashore late Tuesday night, bringing showers to the coast, heavier rain to inland foothills and valleys, and about one inch of snow to the top of Mount Laguna, says the National Weather Service. The storm will produce sporadic precipitation at the coast until Thursday, producing roughly 0.25 of rain in San Diego. About twice as much will fall in the upper foothills. It’s also possible that some south-facing slopes will get one inch of rain

 

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As States Gather To Sign Colorado River Drought Plan, Focus Turns To What’s Next

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)by Andrew Nicla

After months of tense, difficult negotiations, a plan to spread the effects of anticipated cutbacks on the drought-stricken Colorado River is nearing completion.  On Monday, representatives of the seven states that rely on the river will gather for a formal signing ceremony at Hoover Dam, the real and symbolic center of the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. The plan is a blueprint for shortage sharing built around water levels in Lake Mead, the giant reservoir on the Arizona-Nevada border that has sunk to near-record low levels after two decades of drought.

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More Storms Eye California, Western US Into Memorial Day Weekend

/in , /by /AccuWeatherby Alex Sosnowski

Additional storms bearing rain, locally gusty thunderstorms and high-elevation snow will take aim at California and the balance of the western United States into the Memorial Day weekend. “A block in the jet stream is forcing storms to take a much more southern route onshore into western North America than usual for the latter part of May,” according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson. The first storm in the series brought disruptive snow and record-setting rainfall to California last Wednesday into Thursday. The second storm brought more rain and mountain snow to California on Sunday. In the wake of this system, dry conditions will briefly take hold across most of the state on Monday.

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Climate change: One Man’s Fight To Save A California Tree

/in , /by /BBC News by Georgina Rannard

As a child, he had happily played and hiked among these statuesque conifers, which provide shelter to black bears and black-tailed deer. By the age of 37, he wanted to do his bit to conserve and repair the land. But in the six years since he began, California has experienced severe drought, which scientists link to global warming, and 650 of Cody’s 750 seedlings died. Cody’s emotional account of surveying his dying trees struck a chord with thousands of people on social media when it was posted on Earth Day, in April.

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Rain Returns To Southern California And Another Storm Is Coming Tuesday

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Christine Mai-Duc

Pay no mind to the fact that Memorial Day is around the corner — winter is here again. Across California, yet another May storm on Sunday brought cool temperatures and rainfall throughout Southern California, hail in the Bay Area and even snow in the Sierra. “This is May gray on steroids,” said Bill Patzert, a local weather expert and former climatologist with Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Usually by this time of year, we’re done, but this meandering jet stream has been persistent through the spring, and it’s given us four times our normal rainfall.”

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North Vs. South And Farm Vs. City Conflicts Continue To Roil California’s Water Politics

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Dan Walters

As 2018 was winding down, one of California’s leading newspapers suggested, via a front-page, banner-headlined article, that the drought that had plagued the state for much of this decade may be returning. Just weeks later, that same newspaper was reporting that record-level midwinter storms were choking mountain passes with snow, rapidly filling reservoirs and causing serious local flooding. Neither was incorrect at the time, but their juxtaposition underscores the unpredictable nature of California’s water supply. The fickleness of nature has been compounded by a decades-long, multi-front struggle among hundreds of water agencies and other interested parties over allocations of the precious liquid, not unlike the perpetual religious and ethnic wars that consumed medieval Europe.

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Risk Level Raised On Integrity Of Dam In Southern California

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Louis Sahagun

Federal engineers are raising alarms that a “significant flood event” could compromise the spillway of Southern California’s aging Prado Dam and potentially inundate dozens of Orange County communities from Disneyland to Newport Beach. After conducting an assessment of the 78-year-old structure this month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it is raising the dam’s risk category from “moderate” to “high urgency.” “Our concern right now is about the concrete slab of the spillway and how well it will perform if water were to spill over the top of the dam,” said Lillian Doherty, the Army Corps’ division chief. “We will determine whether or not it is as reliable as it should be.”

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