A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday said La Niña conditions are predicted to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2017-18. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC), an agency of the National Weather Service, in a monthly forecast pegged the chance of La Nina developing at about 80 percent, with a transition to ENSO-neutral most likely during the mid-to-late spring.
When I first moved to California from Ohio in the 1990s, I spotted a postcard in a gift shop that noted the state’s four seasons: wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes and riots. The postcard wasn’t entirely wrong. Outside of drought years, the state does suffer through a regular cycle of fires, slides and earthquakes, although the riots aren’t actually a seasonal thing. Californians are accustomed to the state’s weather disasters the same way a Kansan is accustomed to tornado drills.
In a new report on the state’s water priorities, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) offered the nation some guidance on how it might address issues that are burdening regions all over the country. “This past year was a prime example of California’s highly variable climate — and a precursor of the types of extremes that are expected to become more common,” the report reads. “After five years of drought exacerbated by record heat, 2017’s record rain and snow brought more challenges — stressing dams and levees, causing landslides, and adding fuel to fire-prone landscapes.”
WHEN THE DUST RISES IN NORTH SHORE, a small farmworker town at the edge of the Salton Sea, Jacqueline Pozar’s nose often starts to bleed. Then her teacher at Saul Martinez Elementary School in nearby Mecca calls her mom, Maria, and asks her to come pick up her daughter. Jacqueline is seven years old. “I feel really bad because I can’t do anything for her,” Maria Pozar says.
From this vantage point, the deck of a cargo ship skims by above, beyond the fragile levee wall that holds back the mighty San Joaquin River. It passes effortlessly through the wide flat river that, due to the levee and the perspective, is completely out of view on a crisp winter morning. With the ship’s submerged propeller probably somewhere around forehead-level, this perspective would normally require immersion in the relevant body of water — no place for a few wetland engineers and scientists like us.
The Sierra snow pack for this year is lower than it was previously. This year appears to have the lowest amount of snowfall in the past three years. However, in one month, from Dec. 2016 to Jan. 2017 the snow pack exploded to its highest level in the last three years. This could be a sign of hope for resorts that things can change quickly.
Memories of perpetual blue sky and months on end without rain faded quickly after last winter’s drought-busting storms. But with a bone-dry December and a good chance of sunshine well into the New Year, many Californians are getting flashbacks.
With the diverse mix of crops grown in the state and the complex nature of different farming systems, California farmers and their advocates told the State Water Resources Control Board that its one-size-fits-all approach to regulating water quality remains burdensome, expensive and infeasible for many farmers. They shared their concerns during a public workshop on a proposal to revise waste discharge requirements for the East San Joaquin River watershed that would have statewide impact on all irrigated lands regulatory programs.
The worst drought in California’s history ended in April when Gov. Jerry Brown declared it officially over after an especially wet winter. But one city isn’t backing down on water conservation. Santa Monica, a progressive town on the Southern California coast, is proceeding as if the drought were still under way, and it still requires residents to meet water conservation targets.
Cross-border sewage spills got the attention of the San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, and grant funding helped them launch a clean water campaign that will lead to more testing of south county ocean waters. Massive sewage spills have created a public health problem that appears headed to federal court because several municipalities are suing to stop the pollution. The new water testing is made possible because of a grant from the San Diego-based group Las Patronas. That grant allows Surfrider to buy two water quality testing labs.
