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White House Proposes Millions for Big Water Innovations

/in /by /Grist (Seattle)by Kate Yoder

Go ahead and turn up those Jock Jams, Obama, because your administration is doing something unprecedented before you become un-presidented: submitting a budget proposal with $267 million specifically devoted to water innovation.

OK, it’s more exciting than it sounds. The water tech section of the budget focuses on making desalination affordable, monitoring water use in real time, helping farmers grow food with less water, and forecasting floods and droughts with more precision, Fast Company reports.

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The Great Wet Hope

/in /by /The Economist

While the Atlantic coast of America was preparing for last month’s massive snowstorm, California was enjoying a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from its four-year drought. The prolonged downpour—a harbinger of the imminent El Niño storms — raised pool levels in Los Angeles by almost three inches, providing your correspondent with an extra 500 gallons of water free of the city’s Tier 1 tariff.

Lawns, parks and hillsides that had been left to go brown during the drought (state-wide emergency measures have required cities to cut water usage by 25%) have turned green again. The one dismay has been seeing millions of gallons of precious rainwater pour down hillside gutters and storm drains, as it flowed unhindered into Santa Monica Bay.

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Are Drought Conditions in the U.S. Southwest Here to Stay?

/in /by /The Christian Science Monitorby Ben Thompson

A new study suggests that dry conditions in the southwestern United States, including the ongoing California drought, may become standard.

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, analyzes weather types to demonstrate how the American Southwest has already shifted to a much drier climate system than it once had, along with showing a downward trend in overall precipitation. The research, which uses data from 1979 to 2014 collected from across the contiguous United States, could show that the dry pattern will continue into the future.

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More Rain Coming; Catch It with Rain Barrels

/in /by /Ventura County Star

So far, Southern California has not seen the back-to-back deluges highly anticipated with this year’s strong El Niño. Last Sunday’s storm dumped snow on the Sierra and thrashed Southern California with high winds, but Ventura County’s lower-lying communities got less than a half-inch of rain.

The county’s total rainfall to date this season is still below 60 percent of normal. But don’t lose confidence in El Niño yet. Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office, said, “We still have a very strong El Niño set up in the Pacific … and it’s still encouraging. We’ll see quite a few storms come through between now and the end of March and even April.”

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Brown’s Projects Face Tests

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dan Walters

The two immense public works projects that would be Jerry Brown legacies will soon face pivotal moments.

The years-long debates over a north-south bullet train and twin water tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have focused on whether they are needed, as Brown contends, to enhance the state’s future.

Ultimately, however, whether they fly or die depends on securing tens of billions of dollars in financing.

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OPINION: Water Issues Everywhere

/in /by /Stockton Recordby Donald W. Blount

When it comes to California, water always seems to be in the news.

The problems of having too much — rarely. More often the problems of having too little. Maybe it’s about where to get it or where to store it? Even how to protect us from it. Frequently in some form or another, whether it be snowpack or drought or flooding, water is on our minds.

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Feds Sharply Increase Flows from Folsom Lake

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Phillip Reese

Just two months after Folsom Lake hit historically low depths, federal officials have increased water releases from the lake for flood control.

Folsom Lake has filled up at a near-unprecedented pace since early December, thanks to rain, snow and what had been a sharp curtailment on water releases because the drought had left the reservoir severely depleted. In recent weeks, regular rainfall and runoff from higher-than-average Sierra snowfall helped return the reservoir to above-average levels for this time of year.

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Heavy Rainfall to Come, Local Meteorologist Predicts

/in /by /Lompoc Recordby Kenny Lindberg

While northern Santa Barbara County still hasn’t seen the heavy rainfall forecast for the El Nino weather phenomenon, the region could certainly get wetter as the historically wetter months approach.
“I wouldn’t call El Nino a bust until at least April,” said John Lindsey, Diablo Canyon Power Plant marine meteorologist.

All indicators point toward heavy rainfall this month and in March, which Lindsey said are typically when northern Santa Barbara County sees the heaviest rainfall.

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VIDEO: Can Snow End The Drought?

/in /by /The Weather Channelby Dave Malkoff

Checking on the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California to see if there is enough snow to end the historic drought. Dave Malkoff takes a 6.6 Mile roundtrip snowshoe hike with California’s Department of Water Resources to find out.

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Drought Remains ‘Very Serious’ In California

/in /by /Capital Public Radioby Ed Joyce

The U.S. Drought Monitor says exceptional drought was reduced in one area of the northern Sierra this week, “despite heavy precipitation and rebounding stream flows in the short term the past few weeks.”

“It was decided to hold off on making substantial changes to the depiction in the far West until next week,” according to the weekly report. “This is because it takes time to assess the impacts all this moisture will have on long-term deficits and other hydrological considerations. The only change made this week was in the northern Sierra of California (El Dorado County), where the coverage of exceptional drought was reduced.”

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