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Sierra Snowpack ‘Well Below Average’ in Third Official Survey, Signaling Continued Drought

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Chris Jennewein

California’s vital Sierra snowpack has fallen “well below average” in the third official measurement of the season, signaling another year of drought is ahead.

That was the conclusion after the Department of Water Resources conducted the third snow survey of the season Tuesday at Phillips Station west of Lake Tahoe.

Following the driest January and February in state history, the manual survey recorded 35 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 16 inches, which is 68% of average for this location in March.

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California Snow Levels Plummet in February, Ensuring Third Year of Drought

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

With California’s wet season nearing its end, snow levels across the state remain disappointingly low, and state officials are warning that a lack of melt-off will mean another year of difficult water shortages.

Officials with the California Department of Water Resources, who are scheduled to conduct their monthly snow survey on Tuesday, will find snowpack in the state’s mountains measuring less than 65% of average for the date. The reading bodes poorly for the scores of reservoirs that fill with melted snow — the source of almost a third of California’s water.

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Forecasters: ‘Miracle March’ Not Likely for Tahoe, Sierra as Drought Continues

/in , , /by /Reno Gazette Journalby Amy Alonzo

It’s been a tale of two winters.

After record-breaking storms pushed Tahoe-area snowpack to 200% of normal on Jan. 1, winter has all but disappeared.

January and February are historically the wettest months for Nevada and California. But this year, many snow-measuring sites in the eastern Sierra recorded the lowest precipitation levels on record for the first two months of 2022.

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Cascading Climate Calamities Target West’s Water, Legal System

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Bobby Magill

A dire United Nations climate change report confirms what water lawyers in the West have known for a long time—that drought is becoming the norm in the region, and adaptation is essential.

“Every time we see it written down, it gets a little more real,” said William Caile, a water lawyer who is of counsel at Holland & Hart LLP in Denver, referring to the report’s forecasts of water scarcity.

The report, released Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is a 3,675-page deep-dive into what the latest scientific research says about what’s at risk as fossil fuels continue to warm the planet. Water scarcity amid rising air and streamwater temperatures will afflict much of North America, exacerbating biological diversity losses, agricultural productivity decline, and wildfire, the report found.

The Southwest is among the regions that the IPCC says will soon be profoundly different. The Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles, courses through the increasingly arid Southwest, which is approaching a “tipping point” at which long-term water scarcity conflict with high water use and farming, the report concludes.

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Dry Boat Ramps, Exposed Rocks at Lake Powell Reveal the Cost of Colorado River Drought

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Brandon Loomis

A small bucket loader scraped Wahweap Bay’s expanding strip of red mud and gravel, its operator smoothing the shoreline where concrete workers were busy chasing a lake in retreat.

To the left, where the bay had long offered kayakers and water skiers a loop around Lone Rock, the monumental slab now rose from dust flats instead of from flat water. To the right, in the channel that leads to Glen Canyon Dam and the Colorado River’s sunken bed, formerly submerged islands and peninsulas mapped out a warming climate’s continuing transformation of one of America’s great water stores and pleasure grounds.

A desert flooded by impounded waters in the last century has visibly reasserted itself in this one.

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The Colorado River Starts as Snow, and the Way We Understand It Is Changing

/in , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

High in the Rocky Mountains, under thin air and bluebird skies, the Colorado River basin is slowly filling its savings account. Craggy peaks become smooth walls of white and piles of snow climb conifer trunks, covering even the deepest, darkest corners of the woods with a glimmering blanket.

The snow that accumulates in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming will eventually become water in the Colorado River. Some of it will flow as far south as Mexico, running through kitchen faucets in cities and suburbs along the way, or watering crops that keep America fed through the winter.

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Opinion: Why We Turned the L.A. River Into a Freeway (for Water)

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Patt Morrison

If the Los Angeles River had its own IMDb listing — and why shouldn’t it? It’s appeared in all kinds of movies — its career arc would look something like this:

  • Leading man for tens of thousands of years, star and creator of the epic story of Los Angeles’ ecosystem and living things.
  • Demoted to a supporting role around 1913, when L.A.’s new producers and directors began importing younger, more reliable water.
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Slo County Had Driest January and February in More Than 150 Years — Is This the ‘New Normal’?

/in , /by /The Tribuneby John Lindsey Mentioned: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/weather/weather-watch/article258890608.html

After reviewing 153 years of rainfall records from Cal Poly’s Irrigation Training & Research Center, there has never been a back-to-back dry January followed by a parched February in San Luis Obispo County. Over the many decades of rain data, if you saw a primarily dry January, it would be followed by a wet February and vice versa during the peak of our rainy season (July 1 through June 30).

Read more at: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/weather/weather-watch/article258890608.html#storylink=cpy

Satellite Images Show Just How Quickly Sierra’s Snowpack Is Retreating

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Gwendolyn Wu

The storms that frosted the Sierra Nevada with a healthy layer of snow in December soon gave way to dry weather, and the snowpack is showing it.

Satellite images from NASA show a big difference even between January and February. Images from Jan. 9 showed a blanket of snow over the Sierra Nevada and their foothills, with clouds overshadowing parts of the Bay Area and Central Valley.

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California Agriculture Takes $1.2-Billion Hit During Drought, Losing 8,700 Farm Jobs, Researchers Find

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

Severe drought last year caused the California agriculture industry to shrink by an estimated 8,745 jobs and shoulder $1.2 billion in direct costs as water cutbacks forced growers to fallow farmland and pump more groundwater from wells, according to new research.

In a report prepared for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, researchers calculated that reduced water deliveries resulted in 395,000 acres of cropland left dry and unplanted — an area larger than Los Angeles. In estimating the costs, they factored in losses in crop revenue and higher costs for pumping more groundwater.

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