Despite heavy rain in Northern California, state officials aren’t ready to declare an end to the drought.Tuesday, officials said the Sierra snowpack is at 72 percent of normal.The mountain snow contributes about one third of California’s water when it melts and fills the reservoirs. Northern California had its wettest October in 30 years, although the snowpack is typically deepest in April.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack — the source of roughly a third of California’s water supply — remains nearly 30 percent below average for this time of the year despite the state recently witnessing its heaviest rainfall in decades. In an update released Tuesday, California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) said that the snowpack currently has a water content of 10.5 inches, just 72 percent of the Dec. 27 average. “It’s too soon to know whether this winter’s wet season will deliver enough rain and snow to move California closer to the end of the state’s five-year drought,” the DWR said.
It’s too soon to declare an end to California’s five-year drought despite the heaviest rain in three decades falling early in the wet season, officials said. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides roughly one-third of California’s water supply, measures at 72 percent of normal for water content, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources’ electronic monitors.
The California Department of Water Resources will conduct its first media-oriented manual snow survey of Water Year 2017 at 11 a.m. on Jan. 3 at Phillips Station, just off Highway 50 near Sierra-at-Tahoe Road approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento. Electronic readings of the Sierra Nevada mountain snowpack on Tuesday peg its statewide water content at 10.5 inches, 72 percent of the December 27 average. The Phillips snow course, which has been measured each winter since 1941, is one of dozens that will be traversed during a 10-day period around Jan.
Over the objections of California Sen. Barbara Boxer, this month the U.S. Senate passed a new water infrastructure bill that will open the tap of federal money for projects that increase California’s water supply. It’s a good start, but it won’t be enough to solve the Golden State’s water woes. Critics have focused on the bill’s impact on Northern California salmon, the Delta smelt and other endangered species fisheries — impacts that the bill’s supporters strongly reject.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack remains almost 30 percent below average for this time of year despite a boost from the weekend storm, state water officials reported Tuesday, as agencies begin snow surveys by hand throughout the mountain range. Electronic measurements show the snowpack’s statewide water content at 10.5 inches, which is 72 percent of normal for Tuesday. Staff at the California Department of Water Resources and other state, federal or private agencies will snowshoe or walk to about 20 key monitoring stations throughout the Sierra over a 10-day period starting this week for the first manual snow survey of the 2016-17 winter.
In San Diego County, there’s still time to buy water-conserving rain barrels without getting soaked. A $75 rebate on rain barrels, offered by the San Diego County Water Authority and Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, drops to $35 on Jan.1. The barrels are made of heavy duty recycled plastic, hold 50 gallons, have a lid with a screen at the top, and a spigot at the bottom. They sell for $90 each before the rebate, discounted from $149.
Thanks to a series of rain storms, water is once again flowing from a dam into Lake Elsinore after years of drying up.
Peggy Cockerill made her morning walk around the lake and noticed something she’d never seen before – the flow of water back into Lake Elsinore. “I’m hoping it’s coming back,” she said. “I have been visiting my daughter here for over three years and this is the first time I’ve seen water.” It’s the first time water has flowed into the lake since 2011.
A series of moderate earthquakes rocked the California-Nevada border Wednesday, shaking residents in both states but producing no reports of major damage or injury. The first temblor, with a magnitude of 5.7, occurred at 12:22 a.m. near Hawthorne, Nev. It was followed by a second 5.7 quake and then more than 100 aftershocks. Light shaking was felt as far away as South Lake Tahoe, Fresno, Visalia and Merced.
The State Water Resources Control Board recently announced that urban Californians’ monthly water conservation was 19.5 percent in October, up from 18.3 percent in September and a bit below the 22.3 percent savings in October 2015, when state-mandated conservation targets were in place. The State Water Board stressed the need for continued conservation despite early rains in Northern California. The cumulative statewide savings from June 2015 through October 2016 was 22.8 percent, compared with the same months in 2013. Since June 2015, 2.26 million acre-feet of water has been saved — enough water to supply more than 11 million people, or more than one-quarter the state’s 38 million population, for a year.
