A storm out of the northeast Pacific Ocean drenched much of San Diego County before dawn on Wednesday.
Skies are expected to be dry at 5 p.m. when Oregon and North Carolina compete in the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park in downtown San Diego.
As the United States begins to recover from a week of severe weather that left dozens dead, more storms are already in the forecast. An atmospheric river began moving through California on Tuesday, with another atmospheric river predicted for later in the week.
Rain is in the forecast this week, and residents with rain barrels are getting ready. “Right before it rains, I make sure that they are empty so that I have space for more water,” said Robin Reed-Anderson, an Encinitas resident. She has four barrels on her property that collect rainwater.
Bay Area residents would do well to keep their gloves handy, as they’ll be fighting a parade of storms that started on Boxing Day. Monday’s contender brought light showers and winds that evolved into heavy rainfall and intense winds by the Tuesday morning rush hour. In parts of the East Bay hills, Peninsula and North Bay highlands, winds gusted over 50 mph and were accompanied by intense rainfall across the region, where totals exceeded an inch and a quarter at both official downtown San Francisco and Oakland weather stations. More torrential downpours came down over the Santa Cruz Mountains and North Bay highlands, where stations like Felton and Mt. Tam exceeded 4 inches of rain.
Surrounded by miles of creosote and ocotillo in the Sonoran Desert, state officials and business leaders gathered in October against the backdrop of the ragged peaks of the White Tank Mountains to applaud a plan to turn 37,000 acres of arid land west of Phoenix into the largest planned community ever proposed in Arizona. The development, Teravalis, is expected to have 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space. But to make it happen, the project’s developer, the Howard Hughes Corporation, will need to gain access to enough water for its projected 300,000 residents and 450,000 workers.
Here we are nearing the end of another year. And the SJV Water team has been taking stock, reflecting and pondering the accumulation of news and events that made up 2022. (Really, we’re taking some much needed time off and I’m, personally, “checkin’ the snow pack” – code for skiing – and needed to stockpile some content. SHHH!)
The Water News Network top stories of 2022 were drought-related and features about technology and college scholarships also engaged readers.
Atmospheric rivers can wreak havoc on the West Coast. These “rivers in the sky” stream enormous amounts of moisture from the tropics to western North America — double the flow of the Amazon River, on average. This moisture can produce downpours that cause widespread flood damage. From 1978 to 2017, this damage amounted to $1.1 billion per year according to a 2022 study. But atmospheric rivers are also crucial for life in California.
Nevada water managers have submitted a plan for cutting diversions by 500,000 acre-feet in a last-ditch effort to shore up flows on the Colorado River before low water levels cause critical problems at Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. But the Silver State’s plan targets cuts in Utah and the river’s other Upper Basin states, not in Nevada, whose leaders contend it already is doing what it can to reduce reliance on the depleted river system that provides water to 40 million in the West.
The Colorado River Basin is in the midst of a sustainability crisis. Climate change and severe drought, coupled with historic overallocation of the river, have caused water users to rapidly drain the system’s major reservoirs to their lowest levels since construction.
