California residents are using about 8 fewer gallons of water per day than they did during the last drought emergency, according to newly released state data. Between April 2023 and last April, urban water users consumed an average of 77 gallons per person per day. That comes out to a 9% decrease since the drought emergency ended in March 2023.
An honest-to-goodness map of the American West would show L.A.’s tentacles everywhere.
You’d see canals — the Los Angeles Aqueduct, running along the base of the Sierra Nevada, carrying water from the Owens River; the State Water Project, meandering through the San Joaquin Valley, supplying many Southern California cities and farms; and the Colorado River Aqueduct, cutting through the desert on its mission to deliver water from desert to coast.
A significant early-season heat wave headed for western North America is threatening to deliver stifling temperatures that could break records, prime the landscape for wildfires and kick off a sizzling summer.
A powerful high-pressure ridge, or heat dome, will bring unusually hot temperatures to the Golden State by the middle of this week before spreading into the Pacific Northwest and Southwestern Canada, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA. Temperatures could remain well above normal across much of the region for as long as 10 to 14 days.
The Biden administration has announced that Southern California’s plan to build the largest wastewater recycling plant in the nation will be supported by $99.2 million in federal funds, an investment that officials said represents a down payment toward making the region more resilient to the effects of climate change.
The next quarter of a century will bring considerable climate danger to millions of Americans living in disadvantaged communities, who will not only experience increased exposure to life-threatening extreme heat but also greater hardships from reduced energy reliability, a new nationwide report has found.
A few weeks ago, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology declared that the Pacific Ocean is no longer in an El Niño state and has returned to “neutral.” American scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been more hesitant, but they estimate that there is an 85% chance that the Pacific will enter a neutral state in the next two months and a 60% chance that a La Niña event will begin by August.
A rare late season storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on some regions of Northern California over the weekend, breaking at least one daily snowfall record.
Clarke Knight studies just how far back in history, massive atmospheric river storms wreaked havoc on California.
As forecasts tease California with rainstorms this week, the state’s reservoirs are already flush with water.
It’s a big departure from a year ago: The state’s major reservoirs — which store water collected mostly from rivers in the northern portion of the state — are in good shape, with levels at 124% of average.
About seven miles from the Sacramento International Airport, crews are putting the finishing touches on a project meant to provide massive flood relief to a wide swath of the Sacramento region during intense storms.
