An El Niño winter is ahead, weather forecasters firmly believe. The question they are pondering is exactly how strong it might be.
Locally, the worldwide weather factor is mostly known for directing heavy moisture toward California and the Southwest as temperatures warm several degrees across the eastern and central Pacific Ocean.
Sept. 30 marks the end of a water year to remember in California.
With the new water year kicking off Oct. 1, it’s worth looking back at the water year that was from record snowfall to landfalling tropical storms and everything in between.
For years, conversations about the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act – known commonly as SGMA – have largely taken a tone of speculation and even apprehension.
The 2014 law, which aims to slow California’s unlimited tapping of underground aquifers, gives locally organized groundwater sustainability agencies until 2042 to overhaul pumping practices for the spectrum of groundwater users — from cities and rural communities to dairies, small farms and agricultural conglomerates.
Less than two months since Mammoth Mountain’s historic ski season concluded, the first snowfall of the new season is set to arrive in the Sierra Nevada.
Weather models predict a low-pressure system with Canadian roots will bring cool temperatures and rain showers to the California coast and Central Valley on Saturday. In the Sierra Nevada, the air is expected to be cold enough for the first snowfall of the season at Kirkwood Mountain, Mammoth Mountain and other high-elevation ski resorts.
The Colorado River crosses seven states and Mexico and is 1,450 miles long – the sixth longest in the nation according to river conservation organization American Rivers. More than a natural spectacle, the river supplies drinking water for one in 10 Americans and just half of the river water nourishes nearly 90% of the nation’s winter vegetable crops.
As dark clouds massed over Kings County on the chilly morning of March 18, scores of panicked farmers and landowners packed the Board of Supervisors chambers in Hanford for a third day of emergency hearings. They were there to hurl accusations and blame and to plead with county leaders to do something to divert the floodwaters that were submerging their fields and homes, sapping their livelihoods and now threatening to wipe out the city of Corcoran and farm towns across the region.
The cutting-edge world of desalination and the future of water supply in Southern California is the topic for conversation and insight from water agency officials in a new podcast. The four distinguished guests are from San Diego County Water Authority, Eastern Municipal Water District, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and South Coast Water District.
In the Mojave Desert community of North Edwards, 5-year-old Adam Ezelle knows never to drink water from the tap, which contains dangerous levels of arsenic.
In the tiny farming and oil refining community of Fuller Acres, where a potent carcinogen has tainted groundwater wells, Maria Martinez and her family say they feel neglected by a state that has pledged clean water for all of its residents.
The Colorado River is in trouble, and farmers and ranchers are on the front lines of the crisis.
A new report surveyed more than 1,020 irrigators across six of the seven states that use the river’s water: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. About 70% said they are already responding to water shortages but many identified a trust gap with state and federal agencies that are trying to incentivize further water savings.
As March rolled into April, Ken Beck was keeping his eye on the snowdrifts piled on slopes around Vallecito Reservoir in Colorado’s southwestern mountains. Snow reports showed there was about 300,000 acre-feet of water in that snow waiting to flow into the reservoir, he said.
