Despite the wet start to this year’s rain season, Shasta Dam remains at only 25% capacity.
“So three-quarters of the lake is empty; we need some really significant winter storms back-to-back-to-back to help fill this lake,” said Don Bader, the area manager at Shasta Dam.
Bader says they would like to have the dam typically around 60% full during this time of year. He says the dam depends mostly on rainfall.
Californians may face new restrictions, including fines for improperly washing their cars, as the state prepares to virtually eliminate the water it supplies to local communities as it grapples with an unrelenting drought.
Arizona’s water authorities are close to entering into a new pact with officials from Nevada and California they hope will restore water levels at Lake Mead and stave off future rationing requirements.
A Tier 1 Colorado River water shortage begins in 2022, triggering a mandatory 512,000 acre-foot reduction to Arizona. The emergency stems from the Lake Mead reservoir reaching water levels not seen since its construction. The designation doesn’t affect Arizona residents, rather the state’s agriculture industry that represents the majority of water usage.
To visualize the hellishness of the climate crisis in 2021, look no further than General Sherman, the world’s largest tree, wrapped in fire-resistant foil to protect the legendary giant sequoia from flames burning a path of destruction through the Sierra Nevada.
California’s so-called Ancient Ones evolved with fire. It’s crucial to their reproductive cycle. But they aren’t prepared for blazes like those of the last year, which are burning hotter and more intensely as Earth warms, mostly because of the combustion of fossil fuels. Last year, flames killed roughly 10% of the world’s giant sequoias.
With just hours left to go in this month — and no precipitation in the forecast for Tuesday — downtown Los Angeles is set to experience its first rainless November in almost 30 years, according to the National Weather Service.
The 11th month of the year is typically not a wet one for the area, with downtown’s average just a hair above three-quarters of an inch on average, NWS said.
However, it’s still unusual for there to be no precipitation at all. In fact, that hasn’t happened since 1992, weather service data showed.
As the climate continues to warm, more and more of the snow falling on California’s mountains will be replaced by rain. Already in recent decades, the snow season has shrunk by a month, according to one estimate, while snow levels have moved upward by 1,200 feet, according to another.
Scientists and water managers say that at some point California’s snowpack could simply disappear. This would leave the state without the crucial spring and summer melt-off that fills rivers and streams, nourishes plants and animals, and provides a huge chunk of the water supply. It would also be devastating for the ski industry.
As California experiences a second year of drought, with no end in sight, the effects on California’s largest-in-the-nation agricultural industry are profound and perhaps permanent.
State and federal water agencies have cut deliveries to some farmers to zero while others, thanks to water rights dating back more than a century, still have access to water.
Bakersfield’s two largest water providers will soon implement new restrictions to head off the potentially dire impacts of an extended drought.
On Dec. 14, the city of Bakersfield and California Water Service plan to limit the days customers can use water for outdoor landscaping. Other restrictions, like no longer automatically serving drinking water at restaurants, will also go into effect as officials attempt to meet or exceed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to reduce water usage by 15 percent.
October was a welcome water wonderland, but November was pretty much a dry bust for the Golden States. Was California’s wet October a sucker punch to the state’s all important reservoirs?
“Historically, 1976, which was historically dry, started off with a wet October, so we’re not counting our chickens yet,” said East Bay Municipal Utilities District Public Information Officer Andrea Pook.
Last year, Northern California had very little precipitation in October and November, and we wondered if California was entering into a multi-year drought. Today, we know – last year became the 3rd driest year on record for northern California, in terms of precipitation.
