Earlier this year, during India’s deepest drought in decades, local authorities in central Maharashtra reported the highest rainfall deficit in the country. Water levels behind dams dropped so far that reservoirs had bathtub rings of dried sand and mud. Puddles lay at the bottom of seven dams in the region, including the Jayakwadi Dam in Aurangabad, one of Asia’s largest earthen dams.
San Diego County may get more rain Saturday night or Sunday, a National Weather Service meteorologist said. Temperatures in the county on Thanksgiving could be in the mid- to upper 70s before cooling down over the weekend, meteorologist Alex Tardy said. Northern California will see rain over the holiday, in keeping with what has already been a wet fall. Tardy said the region is 100 to 120 percent above normal for rainfall since Oct. 1. That’s in contrast to Southern California, which is below average for rainfall nearly two months into the state’s sixth year of drought.
A trio of storms on their way into the Sierra could make for hazardous travel off-and-on into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with several inches of snow expected around Lake Tahoe and a mix of snow and mostly rain in the Reno area. The first of the storms was expected to arrive Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. As much as 8 inches of snow is possible in the mountains above Lake Tahoe and up to 5 inches at lake level by Wednesday. Forecasters say Thanksgiving Day itself may be the best day for travel with sunny skies and mild conditions.
California voters have rejected Proposition 53, a November measure to limit the state’s use of revenue bonds to pay for large public works projects that could have undermined Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed twin water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The ballot measure was trailing by more than 200,000 votes, or 49 percent to 51 percent, when The Associated Press called the race Tuesday night after two weeks of counting late-arriving mail and provisional ballots.
Hoping to create another water source in south Orange County, five water districts have partnered to fund and build a $107 million treatment plant that will provide drinking water for most of the region beginning next year. The Baker Water Treatment Plant, on Biscayne Bay Drive in Lake Forest, is expected to begin operating in January. The five-acre plant will provide an estimated 28.1 million gallons of drinking water per day to about 63,300 homes, Irvine Ranch Water District officials said.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Estevan López has released the Los Angeles Basin Study that looks at the changing demographics, climate change and competing interests for available water supplies and identifies options to meet the water needs of the Los Angeles area into the future. The study found that there is a potential water supply deficit for the region of approximately 160,000 acre-feet-per year by 2035 and 440,000 acre-feet-per-year or 25-percent less water than the region is projected to need in 2095.
Wastewater recycling is being hailed in many communities as the answer to ongoing drought problems. By cleaning sewage effluent to extract pure water, it’s possible to create a sustainable water supply that is cheaper than seawater desalination or buying a new water supply. But there’s a little-recognized downside to water recycling: It may damage wildlife habitats already imperiled by water scarcity.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows roughly 11 percent of the contiguous United States is under what it calls “severe, extreme, or exceptional” drought. The areas where the drought continues to be in control include three different areas of the country. Rebecca Lindsey is the Managing Editor of Climate dot Gov, and she said one of the more prominent drought areas includes the southeast United States. That area has been in the news as wildfires have recently burned over 80,000 acres of land. Southern California has been suffering from a drought for the past five years and it continues today.
Sea-surface temperatures are very different today than they were a year ago. Scientists say that we have a weak cooler than normal sea-surface temperature event, La Nina, in the south-central Pacific Ocean. Over the past year, there has been a rapid cooling and warming of ocean waters. I’ve been studying sea-surface temperatures for over 30 years and it’s one of the craziest ocean temperature fluctuations I’ve seen. What used to take years for ocean waters to warm and cool is now happening within months.
A decade ago, environmentalists and the federal government agreed to revive a 150-mile stretch of California’s second-longest river, an ambitious effort aimed at allowing salmon again to swim up to the Sierra Nevada foothills to spawn. A major milestone is expected by the end of the month, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says the stretch of the San Joaquin River will be flowing year-round for the first time in more than 60 years. But the goal of restoring native salmon remains far out of reach. The original plan was to complete the task in 2012.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
