El Niño exerted powerful effects around the globe in the last year, eroding California beaches; driving drought in northern South America, Africa and Asia; and bringing record rain to the U.S. Pacific Northwest and southern South America. In the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast, however, the California Current Ecosystem was already unsettled by an unusual pattern of warming popularly known as “The Blob.”
A federal agency projects a record almond crop in California this year, based on sampling results announced Wednesday.
The orchards will yield an estimated 2.05 billion pounds, up from an even 2 billion in a May projection, the National Agricultural Statistics Service reported. It would eclipse the record of 2.03 billion pounds in 2011 if the forecast pans out during a harvest starting next month in Stanislaus and other counties.
The agency based the May estimate on a telephone survey of growers about how the nuts were developing. Wednesday’s number came from detailed measurements in a sampling of orchards.
The American house is growing. These days, the average new home encompasses 2,500 square feet, about 50 percent more area than the average house in the late 1970s, according to Census data. Compared to the typical house of 40 years ago, today’s likely has another bathroom and an extra bedroom, making it about the same size as the Brady Bunch house, which famously fit two families.
This expansion has come at a cost: the American lawn.
The first diagram shows what the average house looked like in 1978, when it measured 1,650 square feet and sat on 0.22 acres. The second shows its counterpart from 2015.
From state highways, foothill campgrounds and aerial surveys, it’s easy to see the catastrophic tree die-off in California forests. What isn’t as easily grasped is the scale of rapidly expanding tree mortality in the state’s 40 million acres of forestland—and what to do about it.
The U.S. Forest Service said in June that its survey showed more than 66 million trees, mostly pine species, have died in the southern Sierra Nevada alone, and more are dying. Forestry experts say the scale of the die-off is beyond anything ever observed.
A recent survey of the Sierra conducted by the U.S. Forest Service paints a disturbing picture of the fuel conditions across Central and Southern California.
Continuous drought the past five years has weakened trees, allowing them to be susceptible to the bark beetle. The recent number of dead trees in the Central Sierra is 66 million, providing a heavy concentration of dead and highly combustible fire material, especially in the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests.
The weather is wetter than last year amid California’s ongoing drought, but the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s request to conserve water citywide hasn’t dried up yet.
The SFPUC voted unanimously June 28 to maintain water conservation while easing up on last year’s mandatory water usage restrictions, which required local commercial water customers to reduce their outdoor potable-water irrigation by up to 25 or 30 percent. Nonresidential customers faced excess-usage fees that will now be lowered, and are required to reduce usage by only 10 percent.
Kids will have another way to keep their cool starting Friday when Modesto turns back on some of its splash fountains, which it turned off two summers ago because of the drought.
The City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to grant an exemption for the splash fountains from the city’s drought rules. The fountains could reopen as soon as Friday afternoon.
Councilwoman Kristi Ah You cast the “no” vote. In an interview, Ah You said she is concerned about the drought and that there are other options for kids, such as public swimming pools.
The State Water Resources Control Board announced today that Californians reduced residential water use by 28 percent in May, compared with the same month in 2013. Cumulatively, local water suppliers have saved 1.6 million acre feet in the 12 months since mandatory conservation goals began – enough water to supply eight million people for a year. “The phenomenal ongoing water conservation by state residents as we enter the hottest summer months clearly shows Californians understand we remain in stubborn drought conditions statewide and that saving water is just the smart thing to do,” said State Water Board Chair Felicia Marcus.
Most central San Joaquin Valley water suppliers met their water conservation mandates in May.
In the third month of lower water-use mandates, 14 of 21 suppliers in the Valley achieved water-saving goals set by the state. Statewide, Californians also were successful in conserving water. Residential water use decreased by 28 percent in May, compared with the same month in 2013. And cumulatively, the statewide reduction for the 12 months from June 2015 to May 2016 was 24.5 percent, the State Water Resources Control Board said Wednesday. Overall, residents saved 1.6 million acre-feet of water since mandatory conservation standards began – enough water to supply 8 million people for a year.
In the last couple of weeks, the California media have been heralding the discovery of “new water” in deep aquifers as a possible solution to the state’s ongoing drought and water shortages. Unfortunately, the updated estimate of available groundwater reported by Stanford University researchers isn’t that new — scientists have long known that there are many deep aquifers throughout the state — and more significantly, accessing these waters would be extremely expensive due to their great depth and poor quality.
