You might as well stick your umbrella in the closet. San Diego County is unlikely to receive rain for the next 10 days, and daytime high temperatures will be above normal, says the National Weather Service.
Large high-pressure systems are blocking seasonal storms from the Gulf of Alaska and Canada from dropping into Southern California.
California cities pay far more for water on average than districts that supply farms — with some urban water agencies shelling out more than $2,500 per acre-foot of surface water, and some irrigation districts paying nothing, according to new research.
A report published today by researchers with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and advocates with the Natural Resources Defense Council shines a light on vast disparities in the price of water across California, Arizona and Nevada.
California’s major reservoirs have surged to their highest levels in years, with all key water storage facilities now holding at or above 100% of historical averages for this time of year, per Newsweek.
The dramatic turnaround is welcome news for communities that have endured years of persistent drought, offering critical relief to nearly 40 million residents and vast agricultural operations.
From the onset of his foray into presidential politics a decade ago, Donald Trump has been obsessed with managing California’s water, often interjecting himself into decades-long conflicts over how the precious commodity should be divvied up.
During his first stint as president, Trump was heavily influenced by the Westlands Water District, a huge agricultural water agency in the San Joaquin Valley that sought more irrigation water for itself and other farm interests.
National Integrated Drought Information System officals say wet start to California water year improves drought, but snowpack lags.
Water Year 2026 (October 1, 2025–September 20, 2026) began very differently than Water Year 2025. Drought developed in the first few months of the last water year and expanded over the region. This water year, over the course of 2 months, drought across California-Nevada has improved by 1-3 categories, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has confirmed her country’s intention to increase water deliveries to the United States, though not immediately, despite threats from US President Donald Trump to impose a 5 per cent tariff hike on Mexican imports.
Ms. Sheinbaum announced on Tuesday that Mexico is proposing a water delivery this month, with further shipments planned for the coming years.
A water district drawing down water from its own reservoir should not be controversial. It should be expected. That is, quite literally, what reservoirs are built for: to store water in wet times and use it wisely when conditions allow.
Yet in recent weeks, after one of the wettest Novembers in recent memory, Sweetwater Authority’s transfer of water from Loveland Reservoir to Sweetwater Reservoir has generated debate. That debate misses the larger point.
President Trump threatened on Monday to impose an additional 5 percent tariff on Mexican goods over a long-running water dispute, reigniting diplomatic tensions that had flared earlier this year over water shortages in the borderlands.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump accused Mexico of failing to provide more than 800,000 acre-feet of water — or more than 260 billion gallons — under a 1944 treaty mediating the distribution of water from three rivers, the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana. The president said that Mexico needed to “release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st, and the rest must come soon after.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is “looking at all available options to respond,” his office said Monday in response to the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision last week that updates the Central Valley Project’s operating plan to permit higher water exports from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.
“This politically motivated decision creates new risks for water availability, especially for Southern California cities, and the health of California’s waterways, fish, and wildlife,” said a press officer for Bonta in an email to The Sacramento Bee.
OceanWell’s new underwater desalination plant in Santa Monica Bay promises to install 60 pods at a depth of 400 meters by 2030, producing 227 million liters of potable water daily and reinforcing the water supply for 70 residents in western Los Angeles amid recurring drought.
Announced on August 20, 2025, the underwater power plant Water Farm 1 inaugurates the first major underwater desalination project in the United States, focused on directly transforming water from the Pacific Ocean into potable water on an industrial scale. The system will be installed in Santa Monica Bay, near Malibu, where approximately 60 modules are expected to operate at a depth of about 400 meters.
