After another week of severe winter weather, levels in California’s recovering water reservoirs have continued to rise, signaling good news for the state’s summer water supplies.
This follows weeks of considerable rain and snowfall in California since the start of 2023.
The three states that comprise the Colorado River’s Lower Basin – Arizona, California and Nevada – are weighing in on a proposal to pause some water releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in an effort to prop up Lake Powell.
Those states essentially agreed with the idea of suspending water releases, but said water managers should wait a few months to see the full effects of spring runoff, and leave the door open for additional releases if warranted. They also stressed the need for input from all of the states which use water from the Colorado River.
The recent storms that walloped the Sierra have significantly moved the needle on the state’s stubborn drought: A large swathe of California, including part of the Sierra foothills, the Central Valley and the south-central coast, is no longer classified as being in drought, according to a map released Thursday by the federal government in partnership with a university group.
Almost 12 feet of snow has piled up at Donner Pass in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in the past seven days. (Feb 23 – March 1) And more snow is expected this weekend.
Five months into this water year, counted Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, more than 44 feet has fallen there at the Central Snow Laboratory, a University of California, Berkeley field research station. That’s more than double the median of 21.7 feet by this time of year.
Crews with the El Dorado Irrigation District are working to clear snow and debris from the flumes and canals that deliver water to its customers throughout the latest round of winter weather.
Matt Heape, a hydro operations and maintenance supervisor for the district, said the focus Tuesday was taking care of a 22-mile canal system.
The USDA projects U.S. agricultural exports will decline by $2.5 billion from last fiscal year’s $196 billion. At the same time, agricultural imports are projected to expand by $5 billion from $192 billion in FY 2022.
Fresh snow fell in the California mountains on Wednesday, adding to a staggering total that has blocked roads, stranded visitors for days, and left thousands of homes and businesses in the cold without electricity.
The Sierra Nevada range in the north and Southern California mountains were under blizzard warnings for a storm overnight into early Wednesday that snowed in some areas, dumped rain in others and chilled much of the state.
Soggy, snow-capped California faces the likelihood of yet another month of wet weather, but what remains uncertain is whether this late winter precipitation will augment weeks of record-setting snowpack, or cause it to vanish should warmer rains arrive.
Last week, a frigid storm transformed portions of the state into a white landscape while toppling trees, prompting power outages, spurring water rescues and leaving some residents trapped by heavy snow.
There is an old saying in the water world that it is better to be upstream with a shovel than downstream with a law book, which is the position California finds itself in as it stands apart from its neighbors on the Colorado River in negotiations over the use of the river’s water.
On Jan. 31, representatives for the six other basin states submitted a proposal to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, describing the measures by which the supply deficit on the Colorado River should be closed in the near term.
Recent rains have distinguished this winter as one of the wettest to hit California in years. But experts say it won’t erase the damage of the many years of drought the state has suffered.
Rains in the state have caused floods, forced road closures and initiated evacuation warnings. And the state has reached about 95% of its average water storage for February compared to the 70% range for the same month in each of the past two years.
