San Diego County’s fragile shoreline and vulnerable beachfront properties could be in for a rough winter, according to the California Coastal Commission, the National Weather Service and some top San Diego scientists.
“We are looking at an emerging El Niño event,” staff geologist Joseph Street told the Coastal Commission at its meeting Wednesday in Eureka.
California’s new state budget includes nearly $25 million for a variety of projects and programs across the city of San Diego, including upgrades in Balboa Park, a new Lake Hodges dam, a gun violence task force and a Mission Valley nature center.
The money also helps with housing projects, human trafficking prevention, libraries, lifeguard operations and lighting for sports fields.
With Hurricane Hilary fast bearing down on the region, officials issued a tropical storm warning for a swath of Southern California Friday night — meaning tropical storm-force winds are expected in the region within the next 36 hours.
Southern California was already bracing for a rare and potentially destructive weekend. Such lashing winds would be only one of the storm’s potentially dangerous impacts, with forecasters also predicting intense rain, flash flooding in the desert and mountain areas and harrowing conditions along the beaches.
The storm has prompted officials to cancel events and issue dire alerts, particularly as the system moves across southwestern California on Sunday and Monday.
With Hurricane #Hilary fast bearing down on the region, officials issued a tropical storm warning for a swath of Southern California Friday night — tropical storm-force winds are expected in the region within the next 36 hours. https://t.co/Kb0cbd2FMg #CAwx #TropicalStormWarning
— San Diego County Water Authority💧 (@sdcwa) August 19, 2023
News reports about the campaign for La Jolla to secede from San Diego overlook some basic facts about critical infrastructure that will make or break a Southern California city in the next 30 years. The simple, visible elements like potholes, streetlights and sidewalks are only a tiny fraction of the infrastructure puzzle. The real problem is the water and sewer infrastructure that we don’t see.
Record rain totals were reported in Alpine in San Diego County Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
There was 0.13 inches of rain reported in Alpine on Sunday, breaking the record for the day of 0.03 inches recorded in 1963.
The highest rain total recorded over the past two days in San Diego County was 0.70 inches in Lower Oat Flats. There was 0.47 inches reported in Palomar and 0.40 inches in La Jolla
A machine called a Hydraloop can save you a ton of money by cutting your water use by almost half. It could play a big role in making our homes more environmentally friendly.
Carlsbad resident Justin Fox bought a Hydraloop this year after using extra water for his two-year-old.
The atmospheric rivers may have dried up as April began, but coastal San Diego County now has to contend with a heavy marine layer bringing cool weather and drizzle.
“Basically no clearing has occurred in the San Diego coast and valleys, with only partial clearing elsewhere from the lower coastal slopes to the coast,” the National Weather Service said in its Monday afternoon update. “As a result, it was another unseasonably cool day west of the mountains.”
A fund to help San Diego County residents pay their water bills still has $2.5 million sitting unclaimed. According to leadership of the nonprofit Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty, or MAAC, which manages the fund, many people may not realize they qualify for assistance.
“We don’t want to leave money on the table when there are people that absolutely need these funds right now,” said Arnulfo Manriquez, MAAC’s president, who oversees the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program.
In Jeanne Reutlinger’s world, gardening is an act of collaboration with friends and neighbors — meaning you don’t need much of a budget at all to create a prize-winning front yard. In Reutlinger’s case, her garden is the 2022 WaterSmart Landscape Contest winner for the city of Escondido’s water district.
(Editor’s Note: Residents of San Diego County can schedule free WaterSmart Checkups to make their properties more water-efficient and are eligible for water-saving rebates: www.sdcwa.org/your-water/conservation/. Read more about Jeanne Reutlinger’s WaterSmart moves here: www.waternewsnetwork.com/escondido-landscape-makeover-winner-goes-from-weeds-to-wow/ The City of Escondido is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the San Diego County region.)
Flowers are blooming in the desert. Flooding and sewage spills have largely receded. Dams continue to collect runoff. But the drought is still far from over.
San Diego recently weathered a monthlong series of storms that also blanketed much of the West with badly needed snow. Still, the possibility of state-mandated water restrictions looms over the region this year, especially if dry conditions return to the Sierra Nevada.
Residents and local officials in San Diego are now taking stock of the situation as the deluges appear to be giving way to sunnier skies. While urban areas are still riddled with potholes and beach closures, rains have revived parched natural landscapes.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
