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This winter’s El Niño has delivered monumental precipitation to the West … up until now. Dry, unseasonably warm weather is blanketing California—Oakland hit a record high of 81 degrees Monday—raising fears the infernal drought might escape with hardly a dent in its hide.

Whether that happens is anybody’s guess. The Climate Prediction Center sees below-average chances of Western rains in the next couple weeks, but there’s always the possibility late-season storms could deliver a soaking. Gamblers wanting to bet on the coming weather might find this NOAA graphic handy, as it illustrates the winter rainfalls that’ve occurred during El Niños back to 1950.

A handful of topics were on the table when candidates for political offices ranging from Congress to county supervisor appealed for support at the San Joaquin County Republican Party’s Candidate Forum.
But one was integral to nearly every stump speech heard Monday at Chez Shari’s at the Manteca Golf Course. Water.

While the current El Nino weather system is expected to improve California’s water outlook for the upcoming year, the four consecutive years of drought has taken its toll on the most integral of natural resources, especially in the agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley.

Spurning dams for research in water technology, President Obama laid out a striking contrast Tuesday to the strategies adopted by California lawmakers in both parties on how to remedy Western water shortages.

In a final budget plan that was dead even before its arrival on Capitol Hill, the administration’s vision of investing $269 million in research on water desalination, recycling and efficiency will find little traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. But it does lay out an alternative to the dams, water tunnels and other giant building projects that Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and Central Valley House Republicans have embraced to varying degrees.

Water flows into Lake Oroville Tuesday from a pipe at the Nelson Bar Day Use Area. Although rainfall stopped with the coming of February, the lake continues to rise as snow in the mountains melts. The Department of Water Resources reports the lake has added almost 116,000 acre-feet in February, and the water level is up almost 17 feet, but the snowpack in the mountains above the lake is down from 122 percent of normal to 109 percent of normal in the same period. Bill Husa — Mercury-Register

Calling an appeal between California environmentalists and federal agencies over expired water contracts a “bizarre position,” a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday encouraged the parties to mediate the issue instead.

“This case is in a bizarre position – we’re dealing with 2012 contracts that have already expired, we’re told there are new ones with new environmental assessments,” Circuit Judge Barry Silverman said. “On top of all that we have Mother Nature playing tricks with the drought.”