Tag Archive for: Climate Change

Plentiful Early-Season Sierra Snowpack Signals ‘Remarkable Turnaround’ Amid Historic Drought

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Jakob Rodgers

A series of record-setting blizzards in recent weeks that buried roads, snarled holiday traffic and even temporarily shut down ski resorts have combined to offer California a glimpse of hope after two years of historic and punishing drought.

Snowpack across the Sierra Nevada appears far ahead of historical averages — an unexpected respite from years of bone-dry forecasts, leaving climatologists cautiously optimistic about drought conditions improving across the state.

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Climate Change Makes Projecting Lake Mead and Colorado River Levels Tricky

/in , , /by /Spectrum News 1by Sarah Pilla

There’s a white line known as the bathtub ring around Lake Mead. It’s a constant reminder for Boating Lake Mead’s Director of Operations, Bruce Nelson. The lake is at a historically low 1,067-feet above sea level, affecting boat launch ramps and customers.

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Rainy Years Can’t Make Up for California’s Groundwater Use

/in , , /by /ARS Technicaby K.E.D. Coan

Over a third of American vegetables are grown in California, largely in the state’s Central Valley. The region also produces two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts. These crops—and the many Americans who produce and consume them—are heavily reliant on California’s water supply. But, given recurrent and severe droughts, the state’s groundwater supply has been strained.

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Sierra Could Get 80 More Inches of Snow By Christmas

/in , /by /KTVUby Lisa Fernandez

Snow, snow, snow!

The folks at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab have been tracking the fluffy white stuff and predict that Christmas will be the snowiest day of the week.

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San Diego’s First Winter Storms to Deliver Days of Rain For Christmas

/in , /by /NBC7 San Diegoby Christina Bravo

We may not be getting a White Christmas this year, San Diego, but it will certainly be wet.

Back-to-back storm systems — one fueled by an atmospheric river — will bring rain, gusty winds, chilly temperatures and potentially some light mountain snow to San Diego County this week.

While California comrades to our north saw stormy weather starting as early as Tuesday, the first storm system is expected to reach San Diego County on Thursday.

 

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Water Officials Set to Wring More Savings From Stressed Colorado River

/in , , /by /KNPR Radioby Nate Hegyl

Last week water officials from Nevada and two other Colorado River states said they would reduce their draws from the ailing waterway.

Now they need to make that happen.

Water leaders in Nevada, Arizona, and California signed an agreement to voluntarily reduce their take from the Colorado River to help stave off mandatory cuts in the upcoming years.

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Opinion: The Lower Basin Inked A Plan To Save Lake Mead In Just 4 Months. But We’re Not Done

/in , /by /Arizona Republicby Joanna Allhands

The takeaway from the “500-plus plan,” the recently inked effort to save Lake Mead, can be summed up in just three words:

We’re. Not. Done.

That doesn’t make the deal any less consequential.

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The Pain Of The West-wide Drought In 2021

/in , , /by /Deseret Newsby Amy Joi O'Donoghue

Like a sinister specter that won’t vanish, drought was already writing the playbook for water supplies in Utah and the rest of the West as early as fall of 2020.

The year 2021 may have been months ahead, but extremely dry conditions during those last few months of 2020 amplified the reality of what was to come: drought, and a nasty one.v

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California Snow Drought Ends in Dramatic Fashion, While Other States Still Deal with Shortage

/in , , /by /CNNby Allison Chinchar
Thanks to multiple atmospheric river events, average snowpack in California has gone from 18% to 98% in just two weeks.
“Increases in snowpack of this size are not common, but also not unprecedented,” Julie Kalansky, deputy director of operations for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E), explained.
Kalansky pointed out previous studies have shown a jump on this scale can happen about twice every three years, but usually over the course of an entire winter, not just the month of December. While they don’t have the exact rankings for each month of the year, “most of the storm events in the study we referenced for the above calculation were in the second half of December and later into the season,” Kalansky added.
The sudden change gives California its wettest start to the Water Year in more than 40 years, thanks to several drought-denting rain and snow systems pushing through the area in recent weeks. The Water Year runs from October 1 through September 30 of the following year.
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California, Arizona and Nevada Agree to Take Less Water from Ailing Colorado River

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James and Jaweed Kaleem

Trying to stave off dangerously low levels of water in Lake Mead, officials in California, Arizona and Nevada have reached an agreement to significantly reduce the amount they take from the Colorado River.

The problem took on new urgency this summer when the federal government declared a first-ever water shortage in the 86-year-old reservoir near Las Vegas.

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