Situated in the Sonoran Desert near the Arizona-California border is the tiny rural town of Cibola – home to roughly 300 people, depending on the season.
Life here depends almost entirely on the Colorado River, which nourishes thirsty crops like cotton and alfalfa, sustains a nearby wildlife refuge and allows visitors to enjoy boating and other recreation.
Even on the heels of an unusual winter of intense rain, wind and snow, the storm that slammed California on Tuesday came with some surprising conditions.
The storm was marked by powerful winds in the Bay Area and other parts of Central and Northern California that downed trees, created treacherous commuting conditions, broke windows in downtown San Francisco and caused power outages.
The Pacific storm that passed through San Diego County on Tuesday and early Wednesday was among the strongest, most widespread systems to hit the region since the rainy season began on Oct. 1.
The system pushed March rainfall at San Diego International Airport to 3.42 inches. The airport averages 1.46 inches for the entire month of March.
The first full day of spring arrived in decidedly wintry fashion in the San Diego area, with a blustery, season-straddling storm continuing Wednesday with widespread rain, whipping winds and potential for more mountain snow.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, the unsettled atmospheric system had generated two-day precipitation tallies of more than 1 1/2 inches along the coast, over 2 inches in the inland valleys, well over 3 inches in the East County highlands and up to four-fifths of an inch in the deserts, according to the National Weather Service.
More than a dozen atmospheric rivers in succession prompted people to think: The California drought is over! The levees are breaking, hundreds of people are being displaced by the raging waters, rainfall is breaking records, and story after story suggest we are headed out of the decade-long drought that has devastated agriculture and wiped out the state’s water reserves. Whew. Dodged a bullet.
One part of that story is true. By mid-March, two-thirds of the state was officially out of drought.
Tiny pieces of plastic shed from food wrappers, grocery bags, clothing, cigarette butts, tires and paint are invading the environment and every facet of daily life. Researchers know the plastic particles have even made it into municipal water supplies, but very little data exists about the scope of microplastic contamination in drinking water. After years of planning, California this year is embarking on a first-of-its-kind data-gathering mission to illuminate how prevalent microplastics are in the state’s largest drinking water sources and help regulators determine whether they are a public health threat.
Snow is forecast every day this week in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, and snowpack levels have climbed to nearly 150% as warmer spring temperatures near.
It could be the winter we remember as one of the bright spots in a drought that defined the past two decades in the Colorado River Basin.
As wet weather has continued to impact California, some reservoirs across the state are being managed with scheduled releases of water to prevent flooding, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
After 14 atmospheric rivers hit back-to-back this winter, reservoirs began filling quickly. Though most of the major reservoirs aren’t full yet, several are significantly higher than they have been historically. This is especially true in Central California at the Don Pedro, Camanche and Oroville reservoirs, KTLA sister station KRON reports.
After a relatively dry February, the spigot has turned back on over the North State, thanks to a series of late-winter storms in March that have brought water levels up at Lake Shasta to almost 40 feet from its crest.
The lake — the state’s largest reservoir — has risen 8 feet over the past week and more than 100 feet since Dec. 1, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation numbers show.
No one really knows how much snow fell on the infamous Donner Party when the pioneers were trapped atop the Sierra Nevada for months and dozens died near Lake Tahoe in the winter of 1846-47.
But this season has now etched its way into the history books as the second snowiest in the 77 years of record-keeping at the Central Sierra Snow Lab — more than 56.4 feet (677 inches, 17.2 meters) with no end in sight.
