It’s been a wet start to 2024 for Southern California. The water year, which goes from Oct. 1 until Sept. 30 of the next calendar year, is a way to measure precipitation to sum up the entire “wet season.”
October 1 marked the beginning of the new Water Year in California. Water years here run from October 1 until September 30 of the next calendar year, and are named for the calendar year of the bulk of the water year (January-October). It is a good time to reflect on the last year and make largely futile predictions of precipitation for the coming 12 months.
A particularly wet season has swept across the southwestern U.S., a region that has suffered under a severe megadrought for over two decades. But what has this meant for Colorado River reservoir Lake Mead?
Storms of rain and snow have hit California particularly badly in recent months, and have spread into neighboring states like Nevada. Reservoirs like Lake Mead rely on seasonal snowmelt and rainfall.
California was hit Monday with yet another winter storm, adding to what has become an unusually cold and wet season that some experts say has the chance to become one of the snowiest on record if conditions continue.
The new winter storm is forecast to bring more rain and snow across the state through Wednesday, though forecasters say it isn’t expected to be as exceptional as the previous system, which brought snowfall to unusually low elevations almost statewide.
What happens in the weeks ahead will have huge implications for the summer dry season. Almost all of the precipitation that nourishes soil and fills reservoirs in the western United States falls from November through March.
As March begins to drag on with little precipitation in the forecast and few weeks left in California’s traditional wet season, we are in another dry year. This is California’s second dry year in a row since the 2012-2016 drought. Statistically, California has the most drought and flood years per average year than anywhere in the US. This statistical fact seems to becoming increasingly extreme, as predicted by many climate change models.
A disappointingly dry February is fanning fears of another severe drought in California, and cities and farms are bracing for problems. In many places, including parts of the Bay Area, water users are already being asked to cut back.
California’s wet season has not brought much relief so far and the outlook is not promising.
The water year, which runs from October through April, started off slowly. October was the second driest on record for California. Later, strong systems – including an atmospheric river in late January that caused flooding, debris flows and feet of snow in the Sierra – brought needed moisture to the Golden State.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
