The National Weather Service says that San Diego’s daytime high temperature remained below 70 degrees on Wednesday for the 37th consecutive day.
By mid-afternoon, the temperature had only reached 65 and was not trending upward.
This is the longest that the city has stayed below 70 since 2015-16, when it remained unusually cool for 38 days between December 10 and January 16.
Despite a rush of rain and snow heading into 2022, 85% of California remains in severely dry conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That’s why water agencies in Southern California and beyond are trying to squeeze a bit more water out of the storms that come this winter using a method called cloud seeding.
It’s a weather modification technique that uses silver iodide to bond cloud droplets together to form ice crystals, which grow into snowflakes and fall as either snow or rain, depending on the elevation.
In a clear sign that the drought persists, California today adopted new emergency regulations aimed at stopping residents from wasting the state’s precious water.
The rules ban practices such as hosing down sidewalks and driveways with drinking water, washing cars without a shutoff nozzle on the hose and irrigating lawns and gardens too soon after rain.
The dusty hills of Griffith Park are sprouting shades of green. In Pasadena, water is streaming through arroyos that only weeks ago sat caked and dry. And from the perfect vantage point downtown, the distant San Gabriel Mountains are gleaming with crowns of snow.
After one of the driest years in recent memory, Los Angeles — and California — is off to a notably wet start. The state received more precipitation in the final three months of 2021 than in the previous 12 months, the National Weather Service said.
Arizona, California, and Nevada have agreed to further reduce their usage of Colorado River water over the next two years as the states figure out ways to prevent critically low water levels in Lake Mead.
The river accounts for 40% of Arizona’s water supply.
The states were already preparing for mandatory water cuts in 2022 resulting from the Tier 1 shortage federal declaration.
Alarmingly low numbers of baby salmon are surviving their journey down the Sacramento River to the sea, confirming conservationists’ fears that low flows and high river temperatures during the drought would wipe out most of the endangered winter-run salmon born last year.
In Arizona, verdant fields of crops and a growing sprawl of suburban homes mean a sharp demand for water in the middle of the desert. Meeting that demand includes drawing from massive stores of water in underground aquifers. But some experts say they’re overtaxed, and shouldn’t be seen as a long-term solution for a region where the water supply is expected to shrink in the decades to come.
For more than a century, a system of government and legal agreements has largely resolved water disputes among those living in America’s most arid region of the country.
The methods of conflict resolution were at work in December when water bosses in California, Nevada and Arizona agreed to cut their use of Colorado River water to avoid penalties under a compact that divvies up the river among seven western states and Mexico.
According to attorney and water policy expert Felicia Marcus, who is also the William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University, regional officials hope to purify this groundwater and are also actively pursuing collaborations with local water districts in order to obtain clean drinking water for its residents.
South Orange County, though, is not affected by this dilemma as at least 90% of its water is imported.
It’s a brand new year, and perhaps you have hopeful resolutions in mind—losing weight, getting politically active, leaving your house more often.
But when you look over your shoulder, the demon that was 2021 is lurking behind you. In its eyes is the pandemic that kept you in your house for way too long, on its breath are the flames that nearly burned down your favorite part of the Sierra, the sweltering heat from last summer, and the wildfire smoke choking out the space in your lungs.
