Climate Archives

Washington Snowpack Low, Similar to 2015 Drought Year

December 30, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /AP

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — Washington’s snowpack is less than a year ago and officials say it’s similar to the start of 2015, the state’s last big drought.

The Capital Press reports the statewide snowpack is 47% of normal. It was 46% of normal at this time five years ago.

“It’s very reminiscent of 2015, but this year we are way behind on mountain precipitation,” said Scott Pattee, state water supply specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Mount Vernon, Washington. “It’s worrisome. It’s the third slowest start in snow accumulation statewide since the 1990s and we had one of the driest Novembers on record.”

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San Diego Got More Rain Than Seattle in November

December 3, 2019/in Home Headline, Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Mike Lee /FOX 5 San Diegoby Matt Meyer

Normally sunny San Diego got more rain than Seattle last month, a reverse of what residents of both West Coast cities have to come to expect.

The National Weather Service recorded just under 3 inches of rain with their monitoring station at Lindbergh Field this November, making it the wettest November on record for San Diego.

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‘The Storm Door is Open,’ Bay Area Weather Officials Warn

December 2, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Alejandro Serrano

On-and-off rain for the better part of a week is expected to continue Tuesday and Wednesday in the Bay Area, but a larger storm will likely swamp the region starting Thursday, officials said.

A weather system from the Northwest and coast is expected to bring rain to areas that have not been affected as much by the recent storm, such as San Jose and Redwood City, according to the National Weather Service.

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Is it Drought Yet? Dry October-November 2019

November 24, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /California WaterBlog (UC Davis Water Sciences)by Jay Lund

So far, October and November 2019 has been the driest (or almost the driest) beginning of any recorded water year with almost zero precipitation. (The 2020 water year began October 1, 2019 – so you might have missed a New Year’s party already.)

Should we worry about a drought yet?

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‘They’re Going to Dry Up’: Debate Erupts Over Plan to Move Water From Farmland to Suburbs

November 20, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /azcentralby Ian James

A private company and the town of Queen Creek are proposing a water deal that would leave 485 acres of farmland permanently dry near the Colorado River and send the water used on that land to the fast-growing Phoenix suburb.

The company GSC Farm LLC is seeking to sell its annual entitlement of 2,083 acre-feet of Colorado River water — about 678 million gallons — to Queen Creek for a one-time payment of $21 million. The town and the company asked regulators at the Arizona Department of Water Resources to endorse the water transfer, and the agency is holding a series of four meetings this week to hear comments on the proposal.

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Cloud Seeding Not An Option For Drought-Ravaged Australia

November 19, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /7 NEWS Sydney (Sydney, Australia)by Kelly Burke

When torrential rains flooded downtown Dubai earlier this month, the United Arab Emirates’ zealous embrace of cloud seeding was blamed by some.

So if cloud seeding can cause a desert to flood, why can’t Australia use the technology to break the drought?

The answer is surprisingly simple. For cloud seeding to produce rain you need moisture to begin with. And cloud. Australia at present is in short supply of both, and even if more clouds begin to make an appearance in the Australian sky, chances are they will not be the right type.

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California’s water year starts with a large increase in reservoir storage. Here’s why

October 1, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Sacramento Beeby Mitchel Bobo

California is enjoying an increase in average water reserves due to increases in snowfall and precipitation, according to the Department of Water Resources.

Statewide, the reservoir is at 128 percent of average, which is about 29.7 million acre-feet. Some of the biggest increases include Lake Oroville, which is currently at 102 percent of its average, compared to 62 percent this time last year; Shasta Lake is at 126 percent (88 percent in 2018) and San Luis Reservoir is at 132 percent (117 percent last year).

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Erosion threatens scenery and real estate along iconic California coastline

September 27, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /CBS Newsby Jonathan Vigliotti

This is supposed to be a beautiful beach, but instead it looks like a disaster area because a sea wall built about a decade ago to protect homes has failed. Now property owners are spending millions to fix it.

From Mexico to Oregon, the iconic California coastline runs more than 3,400 miles. “CBS This Morning” correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti drove just over 600 of those miles to see how the state is getting ready for what scientists say is the inevitable future.

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A Giant Mass of Warm Water off the Pacific Coast Could Rival ‘The Blob’ of 2014-15

September 5, 2019/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Gayle Falkenthal /Los Angeles Timesby Deborah Netburn

A large and unusually warm mass of water is threatening to disturb the marine ecosystem along the Pacific Coast from Southern California to Alaska, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.

They call it the Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave of 2019, and if it doesn’t dissipate soon, researchers said it could be as destructive as the infamous “blob” of warm water that caused massive toxic algae blooms along the coast and wreaked havoc on whales, salmon, baby sea lions and other marine life in 2014 and 2015.

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OPINION: Farmers Don’t Need To Read The Science. We Are Living It.

August 9, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The New York Timesby Alan Sano

Many farmers probably haven’t read the new report from the United Nations warning of threats to the global food supply from climate change and land misuse. But we don’t need to read the science — we’re living it. Here in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, there’s not much debate anymore that the climate is changing. The drought of recent years made it hard to ignore; we had limited surface water for irrigation, and the groundwater was so depleted that land sank right under our feet. Temperatures in nearby Fresno rose to 100 degrees or above on 15 days last month, which was the hottest month worldwide on record, following the hottest June ever.

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