It’s time to dust off the umbrellas. After temperatures soared in recent days, reaching the low 90s on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said the rest of the week will bring cooler temperatures, strong winds and rain. For those in the Sierra, expect heavy snowfall.
A southerly moving low-pressure system is forecast to roll in Wednesday, when temperatures in Southern California probably will cool to a high of about 70.
By studying more than a decade of measurements recorded by NASA satellites, scientists have documented a striking pattern in places around the world: many wet regions have grown wetter, while a number of dry regions have grown drier.
Researchers examined data from NASA satellites between 2002 and 2014 and found areas that have become wetter included the upper Missouri River basin, the northern Amazon and parts of Africa, as well as other parts of the tropics. Areas throughout the mid-latitudes became drier: in the Middle East and North Africa, parts of India and China, and across much of the southern and western United States, where drought-plagued California and the southern High Plains stood out for especially large losses of water.
Q: I’m looking to upgrade my landscape with plants that are both attractive and water-efficient. How can I learn about what to plant?
A: The drought doesn’t prevent you from enjoying a range of attractive, climate-appropriate plants that make our region beautiful. The San Diego County Water Authority offers tools to help homeowners choose the right plant for each part of their landscapes.
The technology one Southern California community is using to turn toilet waste into pure, drinkable water.
Normally we don’t think much about where our water comes from, but when I read this BloombergBusiness article about how one California community is turning raw sewage into water you can drink – I just had to see how they’re doing it.
It’s not just you. Even weather forecasters are wondering, “Where’s all the rain from El Nino?”
San Diego’s Lindbergh Field has recorded 6.06 inches of precipitation this season, about average for this date. There are no major storms in the forecast through Wednesday. And the region has been experiencing one of the warmest Februarys on record.
Did forecasters overestimate the impact of one of the largest El Ninos on record?
That “Godzilla” El Niño must have taken a nap this week.
Warm temperatures and clear skies have kept California dry. The latest numbers from the KPBS Drought Tracker show statewide rain and snowfall not budging over the past week — the snowpack has even decreased slightly in some areas due to melting.
As of Thursday morning, the state had received 76 percent of the rain that normally falls between Oct. 1 and April 1. That’s the same number observed last week, bending the seasonal rainfall curve flat for the past seven days. The average Sierra snowpack measurement was at 78 percent of the seasonal normal, just barely up from 77 percent the week before.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein filed a 184-page water policy bill Wednesday, calling it one of the most difficult bills she’s worked on in 23 years representing California.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve done, because you look for the sweet spot, the balance, and it’s very difficult because it’s very polarized,” Feinstein said. “There are some that don’t want anything and there are some that want much more.”
The federal government plans to spend $3 million this year constructing a new wetland along the Alamo River in order to rehabilitate habitats and help clean up some of the polluted water flowing into the Salton Sea.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced the new funding as part of a larger spending plan for about $166 million, which will be used for purposes ranging from drought-related projects to rural water infrastructure.
After months of responding to calls to save water, Southern Californians say they’ve hit a wall.
Nearly 9 in 10 respondents say they strongly or somewhat agree that “I’ve already cut back on water use at my home as much as I can” and “There’s not much more I can do to save water,” according to a recent survey commissioned by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
A majority also said they are willing to decrease their consumption.
Despite better a winter that is shaping up to be wetter than average in some parts of California, experts say it’s far from enough to put much of a dent in the four years of drought that preceded it.
As such, the controversy on how to allocate water and what restrictions to put on communities, farms and other businesses is unlikely to get a reprieve any time soon.
