Forecasters have a clearer picture than they did a couple days ago about just how clear the sky won’t be over Modesto this weekend.
Storm systems moving through Northern California from Thursday night through Sunday could drop as much as half an inch of rain in Modesto, 2 to 3 inches in Sonora.
For eight glorious weeks, from March 23 to May 18, 2014, the Colorado River flowed all the way to the Gulf of California, something it hasn’t done regularly since the 1930s.
Minute 319, a 2012 amendment to the 1944 water treaty between Mexico and the United States, allowed water from the Morelos Dam to run through a 40-mile stretch of parched riverbed to the Colorado River Delta. Scientists designed a “pulse flow” to release 105,392 acre-feet of water to mimic spring floods and “base flows,” which will continue until the measure expires in 2017.
Imagine you are sitting on the cusp of an historic event – one that is unfolding slowly but with mighty force, and one that will last well past your lifetime. Imagine you have people in your communities who are desperately trying to tell you about these changes, and what they have to say is numbing, impossible to embrace. This is the story of climate change in 2016 – and with it, California’s long-term drought.
The economics of the long-term drought have been substantiated: from a lack of ground water, the changes in farming, the jobs that are and will continue to disappear, to the cost of catastrophic floods and fires. The human effect — the “psychological responses” — is less understood.
California’s drought-ridden cities are on track to collectively meet Gov. Jerry Brown ’s call for a 25% reduction in water usage. But there is a notable laggard: the state’s desert resort areas.
Many desert water agencies continue to miss their targets, even after some have been slapped with fines. Officials in desert communities—which as heavy water users were given tougher goals than many other municipalities—say they face unique challenges, such as irrigating grass in the extreme summer heat.
Recent El Niño storms have increased the Sierra Nevada snowpack to 115 percent of normal, more than drought-stricken California has had in five years, officials said Tuesday. The electronic reading by the State Department of Water Resources was the highest since it reached 129 percent in 2011.
The Sierra snowpack contributes nearly one-third of California’s water when it melts in the spring. However, officials say the snowpack would have to be at 150 percent of normal by April 1 to ease the four-year drought. Key reservoirs are beginning to rise from the early winter storms but remain low. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, is at 60 percent of its historical average for this time of year.
The farmers and cities that rely on the California State Water Project got some slightly encouraging news Tuesday – the state is raising their water allocation to 15 percent of what they requested.
Reflecting the stormy weather California has seen so far this winter, the Department of Water Resources said it was increasing the allocation to 15 percent, up from the previously announced 10 percent. That’s still lower than the 20 percent the State Water Project delivered last year.
The heavens have opened up this winter and are dumping gobs of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
The snowpack in the Sierra contains more water than any year since 2011 on this date, according to the California Department of Water Resources. It’s a good sign, but no guarantee that the four-year drought that has left the Golden State high and dry is coming to an end, officials said.
The heavens have opened up this winter and are dumping gobs of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
The snowpack in the Sierra contains more water than any year since 2011 on this date, according to the California Department of Water Resources. It’s a good sign, but no guarantee that the four-year drought that has left the Golden State high and dry is coming to an end, officials said.
El Niño is currently a welcoming sight for water conservation efforts, despite the potential for flooding and mudslides as California enters what may be its fifth year of the worst drought in state history.
This year’s current El Niño system has tied with a system from 1997 as the strongest on record, with wetter conditions for California from January to March, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
At a local nursery this past fall, I was excited to find a robust selection of water-wise plants, a reflection of this rapidly expanding market. Another interesting phenomenon, related to me by a nursery employee, was a little less exciting: “Customers come in asking for drought-tolerant plants, but change their minds when they see them.” Such news breaks the hearts of Mediterranean garden geeks like me who wish everyone could appreciate the unique beauty of water-wise plants.
