El Nino, La Nina, and El Nino again? Its all too much sometimes, isn’t it? Rest assured that this is very early in the game to be talking about El Nino coming back this fall, but a few things are happening in the background to make me think that it’s at least a possibility.
If you were hoping for a reprieve after Redding received nearly double its normal rainfall for January, the first week of the month might disappoint. “We have another Pacific storm moving in tonight into Saturday but the heaviest precipitation should be Thursday and Friday,” said Idamis Del Valle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Redding could see 2 inches of rain through Saturday morning, according to forecasts. That could cause localized flooding in streams and on some roads, Del Valle said.
Months of wet weather have washed away much of the drought that plagued California over the last four years. With local reservoirs in Santa Clara County now filled to the brim and a healthy snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, water district board members agreed last Tuesday night to walk back mandatory water restrictions, while still calling for a 20 percent reduction in water use.
It may be difficult to think about conserving water as the rain continues to pound down, causing mudslides and flooding in some areas, but the California State Water Resources Control Board is considering keeping water use restrictions in place because, despite the rain, the drought may not be over. The state water board must decide whether to extend or modify the current regulations on water use before they expire at the end of February.
This week the City announced it would maintain current drought restrictions, including penalties for over use despite recent rains. January was a landmark month after five years of drought in California. It simply poured: last week alone parts of the Sierra Nevada received eight to twelve inches of rain, according to Drought Monitor. Parts of California saw the wettest January in 112 years of record. While the picture is improving, Los Angeles County remains in extreme drought. Despite the good news up north, groundwater levels have been slow to catch up and remain critically low.
In the midst of what may be the wettest year on record in California, the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) last week January 26 declared an end to drought conditions in the region. Question is, will the State of California go along? Or does the State prefer to maintain a permanent “state of emergency”? Record-setting winter precipitation in the Northern Sierras, coupled with heavy local rainfall and a significant snowpack in the upper Colorado River basin, prompted the SDCWA action last week.
Over five trillion gallons of water — much of it still locked up as snow in the mountains — fell across California in January, ending the prolonged drought in the northern part of the state. The parade of snowstorms that blasted the state in January dumped the equivalent of about 5.7 trillion gallons of water, according to researchers at Colorado University’s Center for Water Earth Science and Technology. (That’s how much water was in the snow that fell). Many ski areas in the Sierra were pasted with 20 to 30 feet of snow. Mammoth Mountain had its snowiest month ever recorded, with over 20 feet.
The South Coast Water District may have room for a larger well system for its proposed desalination facility in Dana Point, meaning that more potable water could be produced for customers. At a meeting last week, consultant Mark Donovan, a senior engineer with GHD, Inc., told South Coast’s board that an ancient river channel topped with younger sediment — known as a paleo channel — at the mouth of San Juan Creek is larger than “orginally anticipated.” “These are positive preliminary findings,” Donovan said. Geophysicists used sonar to map the area in October.
Northern California — including Lake County — is about to turn the page on the wettest January in 20 years, which begs the question: How much rain will February bring? The answer won’t come for another four weeks, but the entire Northern California region is expected to begin February with another storm system which could drop as much as 3 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service. Rain is expected to move into the region late Wednesday, with the heaviest downpours expected Thursday, according to Bob Benjamin, a forecaster with the weather service.
Though 2016-17 turned out to be a wet winter, university and industry experts urge ranchers to continue to plan for drought in how they manage their pastures and feed. Knowing when to water and which animals to give the highest-quality supplemental feed could help cow-calf operations through the next drought, University of California Cooperative Extension advisers say. Such measures may include irrigating pasture with limited water in the spring, when the crop demand is greater, rather than the fall, said Larry Forero, a UCCE adviser based in Redding.
