It’s estimated that nearly 18 percent of the water used in a person’s home is lost to leaks. Annually that can amount to a staggering 13,000 gallons of water. Whether all of that is coming from the toilet that won’t stop running or a catastrophic burst pipe, oftentimes you find out far too late that there’s a problem or an accident has occurred.

Calliope Waterworks, launching today from TechCrunch’s CES Hardware Battlefield, is aiming to make home plumbing a bit smarter and help save you money on your utilities and costs associated with water damage while also helping protect the planet.

The mysterious warm-water “blob” in the Pacific Ocean has weakened a bit, scientists reported in mid-December.

Strong winds dominating the West Coast during much of November brought “cold air and some new upwelling of deep, cold water that weakened the warm patches that made up the blob,” said Nathan Mantua of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

The blob’s above-normal ocean water temperatures dropped to within 0.5-1.5 degrees Celsius above average.

Scientists have hypothesized a link between the unusual warm-water expanse and climate change or the California drought.

With a little help from El Niño, Mother Nature has turned on the spigot for California, though the North State so far has avoided the downpours that caused flooding elsewhere.

But that could change as a series of storms will continue to hit Redding and the surrounding mountains, said Nathan Owen with the National Weather Service’s office in Sacramento.

“Most of these storms are consistent with the El Niño pattern that’s been settling in the Pacific,” he said Wednesday.

About three-quarters of an inch had fallen Wednesday at the Redding Municipal Airport, he said.

The rain and snow Kern County has seen so far, has been a step in a positive direction, but definitely is not enough to end California’s drought.

Kern River Watermaster Dana Munn said what we see in the coming months will give us a better perspective on drought impacts.

“You almost have to look at it as an annual operation, of how the storms come in, how much water you’re able to keep in the reservoirs, how much water you’re able to recharge into the basin to replenish the groundwater,” said Munn.