Some 22 billion gallons of raw sewage have flowed from Mexico into San Diego County since the end of December, the International Boundary and Water Commission reported on Wednesday.
“Transboundary flows continue down the Tijuana River from recent rains,” the IBWC, a binational entity responsible for shared water resources, said in a statement on Twitter.
A powerful storm barreling toward California from the tropical Pacific threatens to trigger widespread river flooding throughout the state as warm rain melts a record accumulation of snowpack and sends runoff surging down mountains and into streams and reservoirs.
Although state officials insist they are prepared to manage runoff from what is now the 10th atmospheric river of a deadly rainy season, at least one expert described the combination of warm rain, epic snowpack and moist soils as “bad news.”
An atmospheric river is set to descend on California in coming days, following a spate of wet weather across the state.
An atmospheric river is a corridor of concentrated, tropical moisture traveling through the atmosphere. The river has raised an alert for significant flooding throughout California, and experts have warned of severe disruption.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s free WaterSmart Landscape Makeover workshops have helped thousands of San Diego County homeowners successfully convert high-water-use lawn areas to WaterSmart landscapes.
For the first time since 2019, in-person landscape workshops return starting Saturday, March 18. Weekly sessions are from 9 a.m. to noon at The Water Conservation Garden, adjacent to Cuyamaca College in Rancho San Diego, and at the Helix Water District Operations Center in La Mesa. Virtual workshops are also offered on Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. with a new series beginning March 18. Virtual workshop registration is also open.
Participation is free with registration for in-person and virtual workshops required in advance through the workshop webpage. Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Topics cover residential landscape design for the homeowner, plant palettes, healthy soil, irrigation retrofits and streamlined landscape maintenance, all with a “do-it-yourself” approach encouraging the use of low water use plants and personal design touches.
Sustainable Ramona is a local group dedicated to the preservation of our surroundings. By responding to your questions each month, we intend to provide you with common-sense, affordable, short- and long-term ways to manage issues such as increasing water shortages, high heat, high electric bills and minimize waste going to landfills. The question this month is: Are there rebates and incentives to facilitate water conservation? Answer: There are many, both indoors and outdoors.
Another atmospheric river system has set its sights on California, raising considerable concern about flooding and structural damage as warm rain is expected to fall atop the state’s near-record snowpack this week, forecasters say.
“It now appears increasingly likely that a potentially significant and very likely warm atmospheric river event will probably affect some portion of Northern or Central California sometime between about late Thursday and Saturday,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said during a briefing Monday.
Snow scientists identify April 6 as the typical date to best evaluate the snowpack levels for the runoff to the Colorado River each year.
This year, with a month to go, things are looking good. And it’s about a lot more than just how deep the snow is right now.
New snow blankets the landscape of Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir. Last week, California water officials announced that the statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack was recorded at 190% of seasonal average on March 3. Meanwhile, at a water conference, state officials warned they expect warming conditions to persist and called for partnering on water supply solutions.
Starting Tuesday, the US Bureau of Reclamation will suspend extra water releases from Utah’s Flaming Gorge reservoir — emergency measures that had served to help stabilize the plummeting water levels downstream at Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reservoir.
Federal officials began releasing extra water from Flaming Gorge in 2021 to boost Lake Powell’s level and buy its surrounding communities more time to plan for the likelihood the reservoir will eventually drop too low for the Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydropower.
The deserts of San Diego County are alit with wildflowers.
Record rains have fallen over most of San Diego County, and as of recently, the same is true of the desert.
It’s been an unusual bloom in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Why? Uncommon summer monsoons in September of last year triggered the first fall blooms, pulling blankets of violet sand verbena up over the desert dunes, according to Jim Dice, Reserve Manager at the University of California, Irvine’s Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center in Borrego Springs.
