Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip in the House of Representatives, explained how the fight to get more water for farmers played out in the last session — a fight which ended with no resolution.

 

We encourage him to keep up that fight.

 

The congressman placed the defeat of a water bill at the feet of California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, saying the long-time senator pulled her support at the 11th hour, leaving no time for negotiations and thus, killing the bill. Feinstein blamed Republicans for the bill’s demise, saying she had never agreed to any part of the proposed legislation which would have moved more water out of the San Joaquin Delta to the Central Valley and also paved the way to develop more storage of water in the future. McCarthy said she pulled her support at the last moment, saying he was “blind-sided” by her action.

As robust storms continue to move through California, El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean are already starting to weaken, a National Weather Service expert says.

 

Sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific that serve as a key fuel for the weather phenomenon are starting to cool, although a strong El Nino is expected to persist in the Northern Hemisphere through the winter, said Michelle Mead, a National Weather Service warning coordinator.

 

The current weather pattern, fed by a dominant subtropical southern jet stream, is typical for a strong El Nino winter, Mead said in an email.

It’s finally raining in California — just when we’d begun to think that it would never rain again. But the state is deep in water debt. Traditionally, California has depended on snowmelt for about a third of its water. The recent storms have gotten California’s snowpack up to slightly above average for this time of year, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to refill reservoirs.

El Niño is finally making its presence felt with a series of welcome storms. Since we don’t yet know if it will put a significant dent in California’s epic drought, state regulators are preparing the next version of an emergency regulation that has required statewide mandatory conservation in urban areas since last June.

 

An initial framework released last month by the State Water Resources Control Board staff, however, is raising deep concerns that the regulation could take a critical tool off the table – local water projects developed to buffer the effects of drought.

Now that 2016 has gotten off to a wet start, with a series of El Niño storms drenching California in recent days, the question is turning up with increasing frequency at dinner parties and coffee shops:

 

“How will we know when the drought is over?”

 

The answer, water experts say, is more complicated than you’d think.

 

Simply put: The drought could end this year, according to state water officials. But for that to happen, as California enters the fifth year of the worst drought in the state’s history, rains will have to continue arriving in pounding, relentless waves through April to fill depleted reservoirs and dry rivers and push the Sierra snowpack to at least 150 percent of normal.