Get ready for a lot of chatter this week about Colorado’s weather, especially on social media. Computer forecast models show the potential for a high-impact winter storm moving into the state sometime after Wednesday. As we see it now this storm could drop a large amount of moisture and it could be mostly in the form of snow, so it is something you will want to pay close attention to this week.
A new Colorado River study predicts we may need to make even deeper cuts to keep our reservoirs from tanking over the long haul. But the dire conclusions within the study aren’t what make it so intriguing. It’s how the group arrived at them. The Future of the Colorado River project, an effort based out of Utah State University, has produced six white papers to evaluate new approaches to water management along the river.
There’s a classic scene in “The Graduate” where Dustin Hoffman’s character, fresh out of college, gets pulled aside at a graduation party by a well-meaning friend of his parents and told: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word … plastics.”
The year 2020 is going to be remembered for a lot of things, many of them not so good. Included in the not-so-good list is the drought that has plagued the West, lasting into 2021. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which has published weekly maps since 2000, the 2020 drought is the worst, in terms of its geographical scope, in more than 20 years.
California shouldn’t wait another day to implement water conservation measures to counteract the likelihood of drought this year. The state Department of Water Resources reported Tuesday that the Sierra Nevada snowpack was just 61% of it historical average for this date. “Absent a series of strong storms in March or April, we are going to end with a critically dry year on the heels of last year’s dry conditions,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the state DWR.
California’s legislative session came to a wild ending in 2020 when the clock ran out on major bills. Key pieces of environmental legislation were among those that died on the floor, and conservationists are hoping 2021 brings a different story.
At the time, Mary Creasman, CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters, said, “We only have until 2030 to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis and prepare for what’s happening, and right now there’s no clear vision or agenda from leadership in Sacramento on how to tackle this challenge.”
A 4.8 MW floating PV installation in California has surpassed an array in the metro New York area to become one of the largest floating solar projects in the United States.
The state Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would establish the so-called Colorado River Authority of Utah, along with a $9 million “legal defense fund,” intended to ensure that the state receives its allotted share of the Colorado’s dwindling flows.
This year is likely to be critically dry for California. Winter storms that dumped heavy snow and rain across the state are not expected to be substantial enough to counterbalance drought conditions.
Lake Oroville plays a key role in California’s complex water delivery system.
As the planet warms, scientists expect that mountain snowpack should melt progressively earlier in the year. However, observations in the U.S. show that as temperatures have risen, snowpack melt is relatively unaffected in some regions while others can experience snowpack melt a month earlier in the year.
