When it comes to creating weather forecasts, one might picture thermometers, barometers, maps or charts. But a team led by the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla is using hurricane-hunting aircraft.
This winter is expected to be wetter than normal, so state officials suggest preparing ahead of time.
After a blistering summer of record heat, raging wildfires and unpredictable storms, federal scientists on Thursday said a warm, wet winter driven by El Niño is in store for California and much of the rest of the country.
The first winter outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that a strong El Niño will remain in place through at least the spring, with further strengthening possible over the next couple of months.
The U.S. is set for an El Niño winter—the warmer counterpart to La Niña—a climate pattern that starts with warm water building up in the tropical Pacific Ocean west of South America.
The U.S. EPA recognized the San Diego County Water Authority with a 2023 WaterSense Excellence Award for advancing water efficiency through its Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper program, better known as QWEL. The Water Authority received one of 25 Excellence Awards on October 5 at the national WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas.
This is the fourth EPA WaterSense award won by the Water Authority. The 2023 award is for Excellence in Promotion and Outreach of the QWEL program. Since the early 1990s, the Water Authority has offered an array of programs and incentives to promote water-use efficiency, and the suite of offerings continues to evolve as needs and conditions change.
“Over the past three decades, the Water Authority has been dedicated to helping the San Diego region save water every day, in every way,” said Mel Katz, chair of the Water Authority Board of Directors. “Water-efficient landscaper trainings in English and Spanish are among the most impactful strategies to help our community thrive in a changing climate. We thank EPA WaterSense for its partnership and guidance as we advance water-saving practices that sustain San Diego County’s beautiful landscapes.”
Flo, the EPA WaterSense “spokesgallon” poses with the award received by the San Diego County Water Authority
The Water Authority has offered the QWEL certification program free of charge to people who live and work in the Water Authority’s service area since 2015. In 2022, almost 300 new participants were certified through the program and half of the QWEL-certified individuals attended webinars to renew their certifications. After conducting more than 25 in-person and online exams, there4 were nearly 460 certified participants for the year.
To reach San Diego’s Spanish-speaking residents, the Water Authority recruited and trained bilingual instructors and offered virtual training in Spanish, attended by more than 40 new participants.
San Diego County Water Authority Principal Water Resource Specialist Lisa Prus (L) Water Resources Specialist Debby Dunn (center) and Wenda Alvarez, with WSA Marketing, accepting the 2023 EPA WaterSense Excellence Award October 5, in Las Vegas.
In 2023, the Water Authority transitioned from QWEL to a new program to achieve similar goals, in partnership with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Through the California Landscape Contractors Association, MWD offers one-of-a-kind certification and education opportunities for landscape professionals in Southern California. The program combines the CLCA Water Management Certification Program with the Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper program to offer the landscape industry an opportunity to obtain two nationally recognized EPA WaterSense Professional Certifications with one course and one written test. New courses will be offered in the San Diego region starting December 2023.
The EPA also recognized two Water Authority member agencies for for their support of WaterSense and water efficiency in 2022, including the San Dieguito Water District and the Vallecitos Water District. Collectively, the Excellence Award winners contributed to annual savings nationwide of 1.1 trillion gallons of water.
WaterSense, a voluntary partnership program sponsored by EPA, is both a label for water-efficient products, programs, and homes and a resource for helping consumers learn ways to save water. More than 2,100 manufacturers, builders, retailers, utilities, government, and nonprofit organizations partner with WaterSense to promote water-efficient products, homes, and programs.
“With extreme weather affecting water supplies and quality, saving this precious resource is more important than ever,” said Veronica Blette, Chief, WaterSense Branch. “The 2023 award winners helped Americans look to WaterSense and save not just water, but the energy required to heat and treat it, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use.”
Since 2006, over 40,000 certified water-efficient plumbing and irrigation products have helped consumers and businesses nationwide save 7.5 trillion gallons of water; the amount of energy needed to pump, treat, and heat water by 880 billion kilowatt hours; and $171 billion in water and energy bills. These savings also helped prevent 337 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which is equivalent to planting 5.6 billion trees.
(Editor’s note: For more information about WaterSense, visit www.epa.gov/watersense. For rebates, classes, and water-saving tips go to: sdcwa.org/your-water/conservation/.)
Storms, floods, fires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million displacements involving children between 2016 and 2021, according to a United Nations report.
More than 113 million displacements of children will occur in the next three decades, estimated the UNICEF report released Friday, which took into account risks from flooding rivers, cyclonic winds and floods that follow a storm.
Very few parts of the U.S. have been untouched by extreme weather.
According to a recent report, 90% of U.S. counties had a federally declared weather disaster between 2011 and 2021.
It wasn’t too bad of a summer season here in Northern California and really, when it comes to temperature, the entire state of California had a pretty mild summer.
Perhaps Kaitlyn Trudeau, a meteorologist with Climate Central, summed it up best: “Well, it wasn’t as hot as it’s been in recent years.”
New government data released Monday revealed that the U.S. has already experienced more billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023 than in any other year since authorities started tracking such data 40-plus years ago.
The increasing frequency of droughts, heatwaves, storms and floods is threatening the availability of water and its quality across the world, a study released Tuesday said, heightening scientist’s existing concerns that climate change poses a severe threat to human health.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
