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Scientists Develop Category System To Warn Residents About Strong Storms

/in , /by /CBS Sacramento

When you hear about a category five hurricane, you know it can be deadly. Now meteorologists have created a new scale to track the strong winter storms that slam the west coast. The new system could help give more people warning and ranks some of our past storms. Northern California is no stranger to strong storms that cause flooding, levee breaks, and mudslides. In the past, they’ve been known as a pineapple express, and more recently they’ve been dubbed atmospheric rivers. Now scientists have developed a new scientific scale to track them.

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Senate Bill 204 Increases WaterFix Oversight

/in , /by /The Press (Brentwood, Calif.)by Tony Kukulich

During a town hall meeting in November 2017, the Delta Caucus co-chairs state Sen. Bill Todd (D-Napa) and Assemblymember Jim Frazier (D-Discovery Bay) opined for more legislative oversight pertaining to the California WaterFix project. Last week they took a step in that direction. Todd introduced Senate Bill (SB) 204, which would require the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Delta Conveyance, Design and Construction Authority (DCDCA) to submit information about pending State Water Project contracts to the legislature for public review prior to those agencies moving forward with work on the Delta Tunnels.

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Lake Tahoe’s New Reality: Study Says Sierra Nevada Snowpack To Suffer Sharp Decline

/in , /by /Tahoe Daily Tribuneby Bill Rozak

Imagine Lake Tahoe with no snow year round. Every winter storm that reaches the basin brings only rain. No skiing. No snowboarding. No winter sports of any kind. As unpleasant and uncomfortable a thought it is, Tahoe is staring at a drastically different future. A dramatic decline in the Sierra Nevada snowpack will be felt the most in Northern California by mid century, according to a study published in December 2018 by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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Bureau Of Reclamation Releases Biological Assessment For The Central Valley Project And State Water Project

/in , /by /Sierra Sun Times

The Bureau of Reclamation released the Biological Assessment for the re-initiation of consultation on the coordinated long-term operation of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project. The document was transmitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for consideration in developing new biological opinions covering CVP and SWP operations. Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources re-initiated consultation in 2016 based on new information related to multiple years of drought and ongoing science efforts.

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Are We Safe From A Drought This Year? Here’s What We Know So Far

/in , /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Amy Graff

The rain and even a bit of snow keep on coming. Except for a 10-day dry spell at the end of January, the San Francisco Bay Area has seen a series of drenching winter storms that have watered gardens, fueled waterfalls, recharged reservoirs, and diminished the possibility of the ever-dreaded drought. In fact, all of California has been slammed with an onslaught of unsettled weather unleashing heavy snow and rain. There are some areas in Southern California such as Ventura and Kern counties where more rain has fallen in the past week than in all of last year.

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OPINION: Gov. Newsom must mop up Brown’s water mess

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Jonas Minton

Despite many high priority issues on his plate, one of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first tests will be how he deals with California’s water challenges and opportunities. Unfortunately, in the last days of his term Gov. Jerry Brown made a bad bargain with the Trump administration and special interests. It’s yet another mess for the new governor to mop up. During his last month, Brown quietly signed an agreement with the Trump administration to transfer water from Southern California and portions of the Bay Area to corporate farms in the San Joaquin Valley.

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New Scale Will Measure Atmospheric Rivers In California From 1 To 5, Like Hurricanes

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

Marty Ralph was sitting in a San Francisco restaurant a couple of years ago when the morning forecast came on the TV, showing the typical weather symbols indicating what the week ahead would bring: a sun, a cloud, a rainy cloud and a darker, more ominous rainy cloud. Ralph, the director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, knew that at the end of the week, an intense atmospheric river storm was coming through the area. But he didn’t think the TV meteorologists could convey that very well with the icons on the screen. So he and a team of researchers got to work creating a ranking system that would be more helpful.

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Will Trump’s California Water Plan Send More To Republican Farmers And Short Democratic Cities?

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

While campaigning for president in 2016, Donald Trump promised a cheering Fresno crowd he would be “opening up the water” for Central Valley farmers who’d been victimized by “insane” environmental rules to protect fish. Trump took one of the most aggressive steps to date to fulfill that promise Tuesday by proposing to relax environmental regulations governing how water is shared between fish and human uses throughout the Central Valley. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released an 871-page “biological assessment” of conditions in the Delta that it said is designed to “maximize water supply and delivery” while maintaining protections for fish.

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All Yosemite Roads Closed; 7 Feet Of New Sierra Nevada Snow

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Paul Rogers

All roads in and out of Yosemite National Park were closed Tuesday due to heavy snow and fallen trees, following four days of winter storms that blanketed the Sierra Nevada mountains. Some ski resorts near Lake Tahoe received 7 feet or more between Friday and Tuesday morning. “We’ve had incidents throughout the park,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “We’ve had trees come down. We’ve had vehicles slide off the road. Power is out at Wawona.” Gediman said all hotel reservations for Tuesday evening have been cancelled. The park’s ski area at Badger Pass also was closed Tuesday.

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Calif. Clinches New Regs Just in Time for Federal Rollback

/in , /by /E&E News (Washington D.C.)by Ariel Wittenberg

After more than a decade of drafting and editing, California is poised to finally update its wetlands regulations this spring. The effort, which began after a pair of Supreme Court decisions limited federal wetlands protections, could be finalized just in time to insulate the state from a Trump administration proposal restricting which wetlands and waterways are protected by the Clean Water Act. California State Water Resources Control Board Chief Deputy Director Jonathan Bishop said the administration’s Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule “has little to do with our process.”

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