The Colorado River is one of the most important sources of fresh water in the United States, flowing through Arizona and six other states.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, it provides water to nearly 40 million people for municipal use.
Agencies in Fresno County, from small cities to irrigation districts, are hoping money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrives in time to help them fix damage from last winter’s battering storms as they scramble to get ready for another looming wet winter.
Fresno County was slammed hard by storms in January and March. While some repairs are almost finished, local governments and other agencies are still waiting to hear the outcome of applications they sent FEMA for tens of millions of dollars in reimbursements.
The typically parched, brown hills above Los Angeles are a vibrant shade of green — a rarity for early October.
In state parks, waterfalls and rivers that were vastly reduced are now gushing with water.
And in Lake Oroville, boats float on deep blue water that only a year ago was shrinking toward record lows.
The transformed landscape is the result of a remarkable California water year that saw 141% of average rainfall statewide, officials announced this week. The state received 33.56 inches of rain — nearly twice the amount of rain recorded during the previous water year and nearly three times the amount from the year prior. The water year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Arizona governor Katie Hobbs said this week her administration is terminating state land leases that for years have given a Saudi-owned farm nearly unfettered access to pump groundwater in the dry southwestern state.
A new water year is here and there is much anticipation for what a growing El Niño will bring California. There is a likelihood the state could see back to back big water years.
After a year of unprecedented heat and flooding, experts are cautiously hopeful for California’s new water year with the threat of the historically unruly El Niño looming.
With the start of the new water year this week, state officials say there is plenty to celebrate. State climatologist Michael Anderson said in a Tuesday briefing that between October 2022 to March of this year, the state got 153% of normal rainfall, making it the sixth wettest water year on record.
After a devastating drought in 2021 that left Lake Oroville at their lowest water level ever at 628.47 feet, the lake has now seen an intense increase in water levels.
“This past winter storms provided a huge boost to the state water projects, water supply, especially at our largest reservoir at Lake Oroville,” said Ted Craddock, Deputy Director of the State Water Project.
The North Marin Water District is pushing back on the state’s proposal for permanent water conservation measures regardless of drought conditions.
The proposal, known as “Making Conservation a California Way of Life,” would require hundreds of large urban water suppliers to set and meet new conservation targets beginning in 2025. Agencies also would be required to submit more detailed information to the state on how their water is being used.
A second straight wet winter may be in store for California, but state water regulators are turning their attention to the prospect of long-term water shortages, with plans for permanent statewide restrictions.
Current El Niño conditions appear likely to become comparable to the “great” El Niño of 1997-98, according to an experimental prediction system used by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research.
“Our forecast system has shown that it can do a remarkably good job of accurately hindcasting past El Niño events when we’ve tested it using historical data, which gives us high confidence in this forecast,” said NCAR scientist Stephen Yeager, who helped lead the modeling effort.
