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El Nino: It’s Here and Are We Ready?

/in /by /The Santa Clarita Valley Signalby By Luke Money

The sun shone down on the suddenly soddened Santa Clarita Valley Thursday, but officials warn the at-times heavy rainstorms seen this week could be just the first taste of what’s to come as the historically strong El Nino weather event continues in the Pacific Ocean.

 

Back-to-back storms on Tuesday and Wednesday dropped almost 4 inches of rain in the Newhall Pass, with about 2 inches falling in Saugus, according to the latest records from the National Weather Service.

Governor Brown’s State Budget Includes Salton Sea Funding

/in /by /The Sun (San Bernardino)by By Jim Steinberg

Gov. Jerry Brown’s $122.6 billion budget plan out Thursday contained $80.5 million for the restoration of habitat at the shrinking Salton Sea, the creation of a longterm plan for the lake’s management, and is raising hopes for its restoration, officials said.

 

“This $80.5 million will not fund the entire program, but it takes us a long way in the right direction,” said Bruce Wilcox, who Gov. Brown appointed in May as assistant secretary for Salton Sea Policy at the Natural Resources agency.

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Vallecitos Water District Delivers Desalinated Water

/in /by /Water World

The Vallecitos Water District is now receiving high-quality desalinated water directly from the Claude “Bud” Lewis Desalination Plant in Carlsbad, California. The direct connection pipe, located at the corner of Pawnee and Cherokee Streets in San Marcos, will deliver as much as 4,083 acre feet of desalinated water annually to Vallecitos’ distribution system. This equates to approximately 27 percent of the District’s annual supply and is enough water to meet the needs of more than 8,100 families for one year.

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Tracking San Diego River Levels during El Niño Storms

/in /by /KPBSby By Susan Murphy

 

The San Diego River is overflowing from this week’s El Niño-driven downpours. Four days of relentless rain have transformed the river to a raging torrent at times, flooding roads and parking lots across Mission Valley.

 

The U.S. Geological Survey is closely monitoring conditions with a small, boat-like instrument called an acoustic Doppler profiler, which is floated back and forth across the river.

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After Much Damage, an El Niño Breather

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by By Robert Krier

San Diego’s week of wild weather isn’t quite over yet, although it is winding down.

 

After repeated soakings in recent days — with a casualty list that includes battered businesses, flooded homes and waterlogged cars — many residents surely have this question on their minds: Is this just El Niño’s opening act?

In the short term, it’s safe to relax in terms of flash flooding, tornadoes and widespread clogging of storm drains.

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El Niño Danger: Rain and Gravity Combine To Create Sea Of Mud

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Joseph Serna, Raul Roa, Taylor Goldenstein and Rosanna Xia

As the latest El Niño rainstorm moved into Southern California, there were already signs that the combination of rain and gravity was creating problems.

 

Mud and debris flowed onto the 101 Freeway in northern Ventura County in an area that was recently burned in a fire, shutting northbound lanes.

Here are some questions and answers about mudslides.

Debris flow has long been a concern in areas where wildfires have recently burned. Vegetation, once burned, can no longer hold back loose sediment.

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Storms Cause Floods, Damage in San Diego

/in /by /NBC 7 (San Diego)by By Monica Garske, Liberty Zabala and Andie Adams

Roads were washed out, trees toppled, sinkholes formed and residents became trapped as strong El Niño storms swept through San Diego County Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

San Diego lifeguards worked swiftly to rescue people from rising water. One of those rescues took place Wednesday at Miramar Road and Cabot Drive, where lifeguards rushed to help four to five cars with people trapped inside.

The California Highway Patrol issued a Sig Alert for the 8100 block of Miramar Road as they continued rescues.

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The $2.4 Billion Plan to Water California

/in /by /Wiredby By Draining the Mojave

Scott Slater has a plan. It is not a popular plan, but he wants to pump 814 billion gallons of water from under the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles and other drought-stricken communities in southern California, and make more than $2 billion doing so.

 

“Yes, it’s quite a lot of money,” Slater, the 57-year-old chief executive of Cadiz Inc, says as he stands in front of a scale model of the project in the foyer of the company’s office on the 28th and top floor of a LA city centre office block. “It’s worth whatever the community who wants the water is willing to pay for it to meet their demands.”

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Storm Drops Another Foot Of Snow Around Tahoe; Many Crashes

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by CBS Sacramento)

The latest storm to hit the Sierra Nevada region dropped a foot of snow on ski resorts around Lake Tahoe on Wednesday, with a couple of inches in the valleys and freezing fog that caused dozens of crashes on slippery roads from Reno to Fallon about 60 miles east.

 

The only potentially serious injury reported involved a man who was hospitalized Wednesday after his truck slid off Interstate 80 near the Nevada-California line and plunged several feet below into the Truckee River. His name was not released, and his condition was not immediately known, the California Highway Patrol said.

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2015 Biggest Trends: Water Scarcity Rises to Top Global Concern

/in /by /Circle of Blueby By Keith Schneider

In the last days of 2015, the Famine Early Warning System Network, a forecasting tool, reported that the deepest drought experienced by South Africa in over a decade could lead to grain shortages and spiking food prices. South Africa’s corn harvest, which normally yields a 3 million metric ton surplus that helps feed other African nations, is projected to finish in April with a 500,000 to 600,000 metric ton deficit.

 

The warning network, an interagency data gathering system established in 1985 by the U.S. Agency for International Development, reported that moisture conditions are even more perilous in mid-continent Africa, where record flooding is occurring in East Africa while the most dangerous drought since the 1960s scorches Ethiopia.

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