Scientists have been predicting for years that the Colorado River would continue to deplete due to global warming and increased water demands, but according to new studies it’s looking worse than they thought.
That worries rancher Marsha Daughenbaugh, 68, of Steamboat Springs, who relies on the water from the Colorado River to grow feed for her cattle.
• Total precipitation has been well below normal throughout much of California during water year (WY) 2021
• In some regions, drier than normal conditions extend back to the start of WY 2020
• Drought has expanded and intensified across the state, and current water storage levels are below normal in many
reservoirs
• Below-normal snowpack in the Sierra Nevada may limit water resource availability as summer approaches
• The abnormally dry conditions were driven by a lack of landfalling atmospheric rivers (ARs) and persistent
ridging/blocking over the Northeast Pacific Ocean
• Drought is expected to continue through spring 2021, thereby increasing the threat of significant wildfire activity in
summer 2021
Rainstorms grew more erratic and droughts much longer across most of the U.S. West over the past half-century as climate change warmed the planet, according to a sweeping government study released Tuesday that concludes the situation is worsening.
A year ago, when stay-at-home orders were a newly disorienting fact of life, I started taking long walks through my neighborhood on L.A.’s Westside. Wandering south from Palms into Culver City, I realized I live near a huge concrete channel — a creek, trapped in place — with a bike path along the water, and a view of oil pumpjacks rising and falling atop the Baldwin Hills. There were beautiful murals, too, showing a healthy, thriving waterway. They were hashtagged #KnowYourWatershed. And the more I admired them, the more I realized that I did not, in fact, know my watershed, despite growing up not far from here.
The Marin Municipal Water District is proposing mandatory conservation rules for the first time since 1988 in response to record-low rainfall levels akin to those of the notorious 1976-77 drought. The proposed ordinance would require customers to limit outdoor watering to one day per week starting May 1 and adhere to other restrictions. The district board of directors plans to vote on the ordinance on April 20. The district has received just 20 inches of rain this year, its second-lowest amount in 143 years of records. The lowest was 18 inches in 1924.
The California Department of Water Resources has marked 2021 as the third-driest water year, a period marked from October to March, on record for the Golden State, potentially setting up another deadly wildfire season after last year’s record setting blazes.
San Diego County is in the midst of the sixth driest rainy season on record, conditions that could lead to rare and sizable spring wildfires if things stay dry, the National Weather Service said on Tuesday.
San Diego International Airport has recorded only 4.36 inches of rain since the official water year began on Oct. 1. That’s more than 4 inches below normal. The airport averages 10.33 inches of rain from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Unrelenting drought and years of rising temperatures due to climate change are pushing the long-overallocated Colorado River into new territory, setting the stage for the largest mandatory water cutbacks to date.
Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir on the river, has declined dramatically over the past two decades and now stands at just 40% of its full capacity. This summer, it’s projected to fall to the lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s following the construction of Hoover Dam.
California is at the edge of another protracted drought, just a few years after one of the worst dry spells in state history left poor and rural communities without well water, triggered major water restrictions in cities, forced farmers to idle their fields, killed millions of trees, and fueled devastating megafires.
California is heading for a “critically dry year” as drought spreads across the American West, creating a slow-moving crisis for the Biden administration and state officials.
The Golden State’s annual survey of Sierra Nevada snowpack, upon which it relies for as much as a third of its water, was only 59% of normal, officials warned last week, underscoring that the state didn’t get the “March miracle” of rain and snow it had hoped for.
