After years of extreme drought and dismal snowpack, California has had a remarkably wet winter and is now veering into record-setting territory for snowfall.
As of Friday, the snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada was at 286% of normal — the highest figure ever, easily eclipsing the region’s benchmark of 263% set in 1969.
The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has “sharply” increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water. These aren’t merely tough weather events, they are leading to extremes such as crop failure, infrastructure damage and even humanitarian crises.
The big picture on water comes from data from a pair of satellites known as GRACE, or Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, that were used to measure changes in Earth’s water storage — the sum of all the water on and in the land, including groundwater, surface water, ice, and snow.
The seven U.S. states along the Colorado River — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California — are up against yet another deadline to curb their water use amid extreme drought. They have until Tuesday to agree on massive voluntary cuts or the Bureau of Reclamation, a Department of the Interior agency, has said it will impose cuts on them.
The basin states have called the federal government’s bluff before, but whatever happens next week, millions of westerners and their livelihoods will be affected.
It is unlikely the Sacramento area will receive a substantial amount of rain anytime soon, according to the National Weather Service.
Forecasts for this weekend show temperatures climbing above the average for this time of year which is around 94 degrees, weather service spokesman Craig Shoemaker said.
And it’s expected to remain dry in the area for awhile.
With an extreme drought tightening its grip, drawing concerns about the future of water in Monterey County and throughout California, the county’s Board of Supervisors overturned a 33-year-old law to allow the private ownership and operation of desalination facilities within the county.
Previously, desalination facilities were limited to public ownership, a rule that was criticized as more of a political decision than anything else.
With a third year of drought shrinking the creeks that cascade down the eastern Sierra Nevada, the level of Mono Lake has fallen so low it has triggered a 72% reduction in the amount of water Los Angeles can divert from area streams this year.
On April 1, Mono Lake’s level measured just under 6,380 feet above sea level — about 1 inch below a threshold set in the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s licenses for diverting alpine runoff from streams that feed the lake east of Yosemite National Park.
Green lawns, old appliances and leaky pipes all consume significant amounts of California’s water, and researchers have calculated in a new study that the state could reduce water use by more than 30% in cities and suburbs by investing in measures to use water more efficiently.
The study by the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in Oakland, also found big untapped potential for urban areas to reduce strains on overused rivers and aquifers by investing in local projects to recycle more wastewater and capture more stormwater.
California is in its third year of extreme drought. Given that, is it time to rethink California’s role as the breadbasket of the country? Agriculture brought in $49.1 billion to the state, nearly half of which was money made from exporting crops. But agriculture also uses 80% of the state’s water. Last year the industry lost 87,000 jobs, and crop land totaling an area bigger than Los Angeles went unplanted.
California is going into spring with a minuscule amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada, leaving the state in a third year of extreme drought and with depleted reservoirs to draw on during what’s likely to be another hot, parched summer.
The mountain snowpack, as measured by snow sensors across the Sierras, now stands at just 38% of the long-term average.
Colorado is taking a “hard pause” on investigating the viability of demand management, a program that would allow the state to pay water users to temporarily and voluntarily conserve water and store what’s saved in Lake Powell for future use.
“No more energy spent on this right now,” Colorado Water Conservation Board chair Jaclyn Brown said this week. “Until the facts change; until someone brings us new information.”
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
