As California agencies brace for possible summer floods, officials are warning visitors of Northern waterways to take precaution as record-breaking snow packs built up from winter storms continue to liquify.
Both Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta reported near-full capacity Monday.
Once mired in drought, California now has too much of a good thing and has opened spillways on key reservoirs as the first of two atmospheric rivers made landfall Thursday afternoon.
The Golden State activated the Flood Operation Center ahead of the incoming storms, to notify officials of high water levels and support local flood relief efforts.
New snow blankets the landscape of Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir. Last week, California water officials announced that the statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack was recorded at 190% of seasonal average on March 3. Meanwhile, at a water conference, state officials warned they expect warming conditions to persist and called for partnering on water supply solutions.
Without a doubt, weeks of rain and snow since late December are absolutely helping with California’s water supply.
But how much help exactly is a question many have been asking. KCRA 3 Chief Meteorologist Mark Finan goes over where water reservoirs in Northern California stand. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot of good news.
Despite recent rain storms across the state, California’s historic drought shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
Few places are more critical to the water supply in California than this immense northern reservoir in the foothills of the Cascade Range.
Fed by runoff from 14,163-foot Mount Shasta and other peaks, California’s largest reservoir opened in 1945 as part of the federal Central Valley Project, an elaborate system of man-made dams, pumps and aqueducts that aims to reduce flood risks and deliver water to farms and cities in the heart of the semiarid state.
Californians are starting to save water, but not enough to meet Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for conservation in the face of one of the worst droughts in recorded history.
Urban water use fell 3.1% in May compared to the 2020 baseline set by the governor, according to figures released Friday by the State Water Resources Control Board.
While that’s well short of the 15% call issued by Newsom last July, it does show that Californians are beginning to heed the governor’s call for reduced consumption. Water use actually rose in March and April, according to water board data.
The Great Salt Lake has hit a new historic low for the second time in less than a year, a dire milestone as the US west continues to weather a historic mega-drought.
The Utah department of natural resources said in a news release on Monday that the Great Salt Lake dipped over the weekend to 4,190.1ft (1,277.1 meters).
At a point in the year when California’s water storage should be at its highest, the state’s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels — a sobering outlook for the hotter and drier months ahead.
Shasta Lake, which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea level when filled to the brim, is at less than half of where it usually should be in early May — the driest it has been at this time of year since record-keeping first began in 1976. Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in the State Water Project, a roughly 700-mile lifeline that pumps and ferries water all the way to Southern California, is currently at 55% of total capacity.
Federal and state water agencies have issued an urgency change to conserve more water in Lake Oroville and Shasta Lake.
District 1 Rep. Doug LaMalfa announced Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources have issued a temporary urgency change petition. It will be in effect now through June 30.
The urgency petition allows the State Water Project and Central Valley Project to release less water through the Delta, in order to conserve stored water at reservoirs including Shasta Lake, Lake Oroville and Folsom Lake.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
