You really have to hand it to Arizona: Even as its population has doubled and it has suffered through a decades long megadrought, the state uses less water today than it did 40 years ago.
The first official accounting of damage in San Diego County from the torrential Jan. 22 storms estimated that more than 800 homes were impacted by flooding, and local schools across the region sustained an estimated $4 million in damage.
The historic and destructive storms that ravaged California this week have significantly boosted the state’s snowpack and water year outlook after a relatively dry start to the season, state water managers say.
Climate change is upping the odds that a disastrous flood with up to 10 feet of water might actually happen in California. The ARkStorm may not be real yet, but it’s scientifically plausible.
After several recent rainstorms, a local politician plans to revive a proposed water quality tax to pay for flood prevention and anti-pollution efforts. San Diego Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said a tax is necessary to pay for updating the city’s outdated 20th century stormwater system.
All the rain that has led to swollen rivers and flooding in parts of San Diego and large portions of Southern California has coincided with multiple snowstorms that blew across the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the northern half of the state.
A group of South County residents voted Wednesday to formally oppose a proposed floating solar array atop a drinking water reservoir in their community.
Experts say coming weeks will be critical in seeing if we’ll stay drought-free or experience climate-fueled whiplash back to dry conditions. The record-setting rain that’s pummeled Southern California over the past few days, coupled with solid water storage from last year’s wet winter, has Harvey De La Torre, head of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, offering this reassuring prediction:
For as long as weather records have been kept, California has been defined by its highly variable climate, with dramatic and sometimes volatile swings between droughts and floods. As human-caused climate change heats up the planet, the state faces even more intense extremes, with increasingly frequent and severe droughts punctuated by stronger and wetter storms.
Rivers and flood channels are again flowing hard across San Diego County after a new Pacific storm moved through the region before dawn Thursday, bringing a fifth straight day of precipitation.
