This weekend brought San Diego county one of the season’s biggest winter storms.
A cold storm from the north on Thursday brought low temperatures and snow levels down to 2,000 feet of elevation. Then conditions warmed as an atmospheric river brought tropical moisture to the region.
If there’s concern about California’s wet winter turning dry, consider it shushed.
The heaps of snow over the past week on top of the parade of deluges in early January have been extraordinary and left much of the state with well-above-average precipitation for the season. The winter storms, which account for the bulk of the state’s rain and snow, are forecast to continue into next month, virtually ensuring a good water year for California.
It’s not even March yet, but the mountains that feed the Colorado River already have seen more snow this winter than they normally would through an entire snow season.
And with some snow in the forecast, there’s still more time for that snowpack to grow.
California was hit Monday with yet another winter storm, adding to what has become an unusually cold and wet season that some experts say has the chance to become one of the snowiest on record if conditions continue.
The new winter storm is forecast to bring more rain and snow across the state through Wednesday, though forecasters say it isn’t expected to be as exceptional as the previous system, which brought snowfall to unusually low elevations almost statewide.
February snowfall might have fallen behind January’s brisk pace, but the Upper Colorado River Basin will go into March still well above average snowpack levels.
With all the headlines about snow in California and Utah, the area that matters most to the Las Vegas valley and Lake Mead is the region around the Colorado River’s headwaters — where the river is born among the peaks in and around Rocky Mountain National Park.
This month the Santa Fe Irrigation District is preparing to increase water rate charges for the next three years. The rate structure approved by the board in late 2022 was for tiered rates with a meter overlay for residential properties, an option they believe is unique to accommodate the variations in the district from small Solana Beach city lots to larger properties in Rancho Santa Fe.
All of this rain in California has had positive impacts on some of the state’s main reservoirs. Though officials say reservoir levels have seen major improvements, we’re not out of the drought yet.
“California, statewide is at 131% of average precipitation,” said Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, “What that means is that a lot of our reservoirs have had the opportunity to improve significantly, compared to last year or the year before. Most of our reservoirs are fairly close to full.”
It seems like we’re always in a drought in Southern California, so when it rains, the question becomes: Where did all that precious water go?
Well, not all of it ends up in the ocean. According to Art Castro, watershed manager at the L.A. Department of Water and Power, in the last four days alone, the city of L.A. captured enough water to fill about 8,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Not everyone is a fan, including Andy Mueller, director of the Colorado River District. He doesn’t like programs that pay farmers to stop farming. Mueller also didn’t ask for the Inflation Reduction Act’s $125 million to pay the farmers he represents. Mueller’s organization exists to keep Western Colorado’s rural water away from growing cities across the Rockies.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Avon, who chairs the Committee for Agriculture and Natural Resources, has a more nuanced view.
For Californians, drought has been a constant and inescapable fact of life for decades. Worsening drought in the Western United States is just one of the many life-threatening impacts of the climate crisis. And as drying conditions bring water reservoirs along the Colorado River to dangerously low levels, the impact of extended drought conditions is now threatening 40 million Americans’ access to water — unless we can come up with a plan to protect it.
