Wonder when El Niño is really coming to SoCal? NBC4 Meteorologist Anthony Yanez has some answers:
It’s the number one question I get about our weather: “Where is the rain from El Niño?”
If you’ve been paying close attention, you know the NBCLA weather team has been saying for months that we should be prepared for February and March. Everything is still on track for that time frame. But we have to be careful for what we wish for.
California’s Lake Oroville reservoir has risen nearly 17 feet in the past 10 days as consistent rains continue to bring relief to the drought-stricken state.
California’s Department of Water Resources estimates the reservoir is holding 689.14 feet of water out of a capacity of 900. More rain is expected in the coming weeks, which could bring up to 30 more feet of water to Lake Oroville.
“This is excellent. This is what we need,” Kevin Wright , the Sierra Valley watermaster for Department of Water Resources, told KRCR 7 News. “We are not out of the drought … The lake has a long ways to go before it’s full. So, we still need to conserve water.”
Farmers in California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley are bracing to receive no irrigation water from a federal system of reservoirs and canals for a third consecutive year and looking to El Niño to produce the very wet winter they need.
The year kicked off with heavy rains and an above-average snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. The El Niño — a global weather system associated with wet winters in California — may play out nationwide through late spring or beyond, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say.
Gov. Jerry Brown has a grand stage and likely has some time to kill in his State of the State address Thursday. We’re here to help.
We urge the governor to spend some time talking about a topic that polls show the voters are interested in — drought and how to deal with it.
He can use current events as an illustration.
After a train of storms hit the north state this week, creeks and rivers flooded for the first time in years. It’s a long time since riparian habitats got a good flushing and it’s badly needed.
A farmer on Tuesday spread canal water across an almond orchard southwest of Modesto. He wasn’t irrigating the trees – the rain took care of that. He was recharging groundwater.
The almond industry and its partners are researching whether excess water in wet years such as this one could boost aquifers that might be stressed during drought. In Tuesday’s demonstration for the media, the water came from city storm drains via a Modesto Irrigation District canal that usually is idle in winter.
The El Niño rainstorm had already turned Nick Blom’s almond orchard into a quagmire. Still, he wheeled open the lid of a massive irrigation pipe. Fifteen minutes later, a gurgling belch heralded a gush of water that surged over the lip of the pipe and spread across five acres of almond trees.
Blom is neither crazy nor self-destructive. He’s a volunteer in an experiment run by UC Davis that could offer a partial solution to California’s perennial water shortages, and in the process, challenge some long-standing tenets of flood control and farming in the Central Valley.
California water regulators on Tuesday approved new rules aimed at improving how the state tracks diversions of surface water.
The regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board require all those who divert water from rivers and streams to measure and report how much they use annually. The regulations apply to thousands of holders of water rights across the state, from farmers to water agencies.
Water board officials said previously some holders of water rights were required to report on diversions every three years instead of annually, and a number of them had been able to claim an exemption to avoid the measurement requirements.
Recent heavy rain has proved a soggy reminder: Having the right tools on hand can help you and your home stay dry.
After four years of epic drought, we may have forgotten what real rain looks like – and where water goes during a major storm. We may have made changes in our home landscapes that affect the way rainwater flows near our house. We may not know (yet) where the roof may leak or where weakened tree limbs may fall.
A San Diego-area nonprofit group believes fish waste may be the best cure for California’s drought.
The local organization ECOLIFE Conservation uses grant funding to create sustainable vegetable gardens that rely on fish waste to fertilize plants.
The process is called aquaponics, and the Environmental Club at Patrick Henry High School is the first in San Diego County to start its own aquaponics garden.
The California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) issued its first temporary groundwater storage permit to the Scott Valley Irrigation District to capture high winter and spring flows for local groundwater storage and recharge. The permit is the first in what is expected to be a series of temporary permits issued for this type of water diversion and use.
The temporary permit application was submitted Jan. 13 by the District in coordination with staff at the University of California at Davis, the California Farm Bureau Federation, Scott River Water Trust and others.
