Concerns that California might remain in a “snow drought” this winter have eased after a series of storms this month blanketed the Sierra Nevada with a near-average amount of snow for this time of year.
After a dry start to winter, California’s rainy season is finally well under way. December downpours sent water racing through streets in coastal Ventura County and the city of Santa Barbara. Flash floods hit San Diego in late January, and back-to-back atmospheric river-fueled storms arrived earlier this month, causing wind damage in Northern California and hundreds of mudslides in Los Angeles.
In the past few decades, we have witnessed the pendulum swinging back and forth in California between managing drought, to questions about how we will handle too much water. While the weather might be fickle, one thing is certain, climate change will make extreme weather more common and will require residents to invest in their stormwater infrastructure.
Some of the thorniest debates over water in California revolve around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where pumps send water flowing to farms and cities, and where populations of native fish have been declining.
At the dawn of the new year in 1997, the Truckee River transformed. The winter season had thus far been great for snow, but when a subtropical storm from near the Hawaiian Islands rolled in, it carried with it unseasonably warm rain. The warm rainfall combined with snowmelt to swell the rivers, with the Truckee burying much of downtown Reno under water.
The Biden administration wants to guarantee access to clean water throughout the country and one way it wants to do that is by removing lead pipes.
We all know the saying about saving something for a rainy day, but in California it’s about saving the water for a dry day.
California’s two biggest reservoirs have risen by several feet since Sunday after yet another atmospheric river lashed the state with rain.
The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it is distributing another $5.8 billion for water infrastructure projects around the country, paid for by one of its key legislative victories.
As of mid-February, the Sacramento area has now received more than a foot of rain in the current water season. The rain and snowfall from this winter’s storms have been swelling rivers, adding to the Sierra Nevada snowpack and hopefully replenishing reservoirs.
