California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross is putting forward a five-fold plan intended to guide the direction of farming in the the state in the next decade.
In a sense, the record string of storms that hit California created two lakes — one real and one hypothetical.
The deluges re-established Tulare Lake, once the largest lake west of the Mississippi River that was drained long ago for agriculture and municipal water demands.
Meanwhile, the state’s record snowpack, according to the Los Angeles Times, holds enough water to fill the depleted Lake Mead on the Colorado River. Of course, that’s not where the runoff goes.
Four months ago, the outlook for the Colorado River was so dire that federal projections showed imminent risks of reservoirs dropping to dangerously low levels.
But after this winter’s major storms, the river’s depleted reservoirs are set to rise substantially with runoff from the largest snowpack in the watershed since 1997.
An already wet winter in the mountains that feed the Colorado River got even better in March, providing a significant boost to the amount of water that forecasters expect to flow downstream into Lake Powell this summer.
The latest prediction from the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center shows that the river will swell to 177 percent of its average volume during the all-important April-through-July period as the snow melts and flows into the river and its tributaries.
Since the beginning of December, Lake Oroville’s elevation has shot up by around 200 feet thanks to a constant stream of winter storms.
The lake reached a level that has prompted the California Department of Water Resources to let water out over the course of the past month in what the department claims is an effort to control flooding downstream.
With all the rain Southern California had this winter, local water agencies are working harder to capture and keep all that water for when the drier years return.
In San Bernardino, you might not notice the latest project because much of it will be underground.
The Santa Ana River flows from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Pacific Ocean in Orange County. While much of that water does end up in the ocean, plenty is stored in aquifers and reservoirs.
A crowd of more than angry residents turned out at the Alpine Community Planning Group hearing on March 23, where Sweetwater Water Authority officials addressed concerns over damage at Loveland Reservoir after SWA drained it to dead pool status. Audience members and planning group members peppered SWA officials with questions in the at times contentious session.
If there ever was a winter to check off squares on your Wild Weather Bingo card, 2023 was it.
More than 30 atmospheric river storms. 97 mph wind gusts. Destructive tidal surges. Bomb cyclones. Flash floods. Levee breaks. The Fujiwhara Effect. Snow piled more than 240 inches deep at Mammoth Pass. One of the rainiest days on record in San Francisco.
