WEATHER CA rain, update required for UK user

Richard

TB Fanatic
I just wanted to ask the members in CA who obviously know the situation first hand whether they think the long term drought is over. I'm trying to monitor the situation from the UK but I don't have access to certain websites or media articles. The mainstream articles seem to say yes the rain so far is welcome but we need a lot more over the season to judge whether the years long drought is over.
As far as I can see the CA reservoirs are filling up very rapidly perhaps at an unprecedented rate and the snow pack is twice normal even after a few days. So my opinion is that the drought is well and truly over even now and the situation should be greeted with optimism.
What is the assessment of those who live in the area or others who really understand the situation.

I.ve just noticed this is an old thread. so will post this article on a new one.

Thanks in anticipation.
 

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
Well it does look good for the Central Valley and Los Angeles water supply. But here in the S.Ca. high desert we have received very little from these systems. Maybe 3/4 of an in at most. Some areas more than others. The snow pack looks pretty good near me so aquifer should be good but until we start getting multiple monsoon rains in the summer I would say we are still basically in a drought. Up here anyway. But then I am no meteorologist.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Friends from California were just staying here at the house for a week's visit. Yup...escaped TO Northern Minnesota in the middle of January because they couldn't face going home to N. Cali and the waves of frog stranglers. The weather was a major topic of conversation.

Reservoirs...yes, (the ones that still exist) but the great majority of all that water runs into the ocean.

Who knows what next season will bring. It's California. Either the damned place is on fire, or it's sliding into the Pacific.
 

Pebbles

Veteran Member
Richard, I live in Arizona, about 35 miles from the Colorado river, 80 miles from Hoover dam. The drought is far from over. Even though we have had 148% above normal rain for this time of year, this drought has been many, many years long and will take many years of higher than normal right fall in the southwest and California to fill the aquifers and heal our land from the drought.

Here in the south west the two sources of water are the Colorado River and water underground (aquifers). The Phoenix area gets water from the Colorado River. The water is diverted from the Colorado River hundreds of miles away and flows via aqueducts to Phoenix.

I live in the Hualapai Valley aquifer area of west Arizona. Everyone's water here comes from underground aquafers. We have our own well. When they dug our well 18 years ago they hit water at 110 feet but they dropped the well down to 230 feet.

The absolutely bizarre thing now is people are FARMING here. They put in huge wells that pump massive amounts of water to irrigate fields of hay, fruit trees, garlic. Our valley has just now put a moratorium of selling land to people who are going to farm.

Here is an article from a few years ago discussing the issue. Change the hxxps back to https

hxxps://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2019/12/05/unregulated-pumping-arizona-groundwater-dry-wells/2425078001/

Megafarms and deeper wells are draining the water beneath rural Arizona – quietly, irreversibly.​

It is a scary situation but they keep building in California and Arizona.
 

9idrr

Veteran Member
Check for a wikipedia article about the California flood of 1861/1862 and you'll get an idea of what a real drought-ending winter can mean. Not sure what we're experiencing right now will do the trick.
Still better than the last few winters we've seen.
 

Hermantribe

Veteran Member
It’s planned to never be over. By planned, I mean the idiots at the state capital deliberately did not build the necessary infrastructure like dams and reservoirs. Environmentally sensitive creatures were more important than people, and billions of gallons ran out to the ocean.
And with the lack of a hard border preventing more residents from flowing in, it may get better but only temporarily.
AND there’s the whole wastewater and rainwater from Tijuana mixing with the ocean and affecting San Diego beaches and lagoons.
 

Bubble Head

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Richard, I live in Arizona, about 35 miles from the Colorado river, 80 miles from Hoover dam. The drought is far from over. Even though we have had 148% above normal rain for this time of year, this drought has been many, many years long and will take many years of higher than normal right fall in the southwest and California to fill the aquifers and heal our land from the drought.

Here in the south west the two sources of water are the Colorado River and water underground (aquifers). The Phoenix area gets water from the Colorado River. The water is diverted from the Colorado River hundreds of miles away and flows via aqueducts to Phoenix.

I live in the Hualapai Valley aquifer area of west Arizona. Everyone's water here comes from underground aquafers. We have our own well. When they dug our well 18 years ago they hit water at 110 feet but they dropped the well down to 230 feet.

The absolutely bizarre thing now is people are FARMING here. They put in huge wells that pump massive amounts of water to irrigate fields of hay, fruit trees, garlic. Our valley has just now put a moratorium of selling land to people who are going to farm.

Here is an article from a few years ago discussing the issue. Change the hxxps back to https

hxxps://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2019/12/05/unregulated-pumping-arizona-groundwater-dry-wells/2425078001/

Megafarms and deeper wells are draining the water beneath rural Arizona – quietly, irreversibly.​

It is a scary situation but they keep building in California and Arizona.
How are your golf courses doing?
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
From what I read yesterday, it's gone from "severe drought" to "moderate drought" everywhere out there.

No, it's not over. May never be.
California is for the most part a Semi-Arid environment, especially the central and southern part of the state. Drought - Fire - Flood is a somewhat normal climatic rotation for us. Many plants in our "Chaparral Biome" actually require fire to propagate. Our slow growing Giant Redwoods and Sequoia's wouldn't be giant's without fire to burn down the faster growing competing Douglas Fir trees, while the Redwoods and Sequoias thick bark protects the giants against fire.
 

dioptase

Veteran Member
Agree with what others have said here (ShadowMan explained the ecology well). There will always be drought, to a greater or lesser extent, in CA. Every so many years, there will be a very wet year with lots of flooding.

Also agree that we need more dams and reservoirs to capture what rain we do get, but I'm trying not to get into a political rant here.
 

Knoxville's Joker

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Well they have instituted severe water saving measures. Those have to stay in place until everything catches up. It is basically still in a drough, just not a severe one at the moment.

Given timing I almost think these storms were made to dump all the water to try and lessen the drought.

Oppenheimer Ranch project on youtube closely tracks the resevoir water levels and things out west as the guy has a homestead in Colorado...
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
The climate is changing....ALL THE TIME - OVER TIME, like hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and millions of years. We have a river bed down in San Bernardino County that is easily over a half to a mile wide. That boulder and rock strewn river bed was not made in the last hundred to a thousand years. Rather it was probably carved out during the last Mega-fauna period back when the La Brea Tar Pits in the Los Angeles area was capturing Saber Toothed Tigers, Ground Sloths, early Horses, Mastodons and such that roamed our countryside here. A much wetter period of time for sure.

Our planet operates on cycles. Some are wet, some are dry, some are a mix. Wait long enough and everything comes back around again. Ice Ages come and go and then come again......

Not all that long ago, back when Europeans were first arriving on the West Coast, there was enough snow and rain coming down on the Sierra Nevada mountains and in the Central Valley, that during the flood season there was enough fresh water flowing in the Central Valley and filling the Sacramento River and flowing into San Francisco Bay that it would be turned into an entire FRESH WATER BAY well out beyond what is now known as the Golden Gate.

Like wise during the dry season salt and brackish water would flow back up the Sacramento River all the way to Sacramento. How's that for CHANGE?!?

On the other hand....we WASTE a HELLVA LOT OF WATER!! We brought out and planted plants and trees that DEMAND more water than we naturally get out here. Kentucky Blue Grass DOES NOT belong out in our semi-arid region. Flushing good clean potable water down toilets and then out into the ocean is a complete waste of that valuable resource. There are far better ways to deal with grey and black water. In fact, almost 98% of it can be reclaimed, cleaned, purified and reused. That is a fact and we can do it now.

The answers are there.....if we want to use them, but for the most part we're just too lazy or don't care.......enough.
 

Knoxville's Joker

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The climate is changing....ALL THE TIME - OVER TIME, like hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and millions of years. We have a river bed down in San Bernardino County that is easily over a half to a mile wide. That boulder and rock strewn river bed was not made in the last hundred to a thousand years. Rather it was probably carved out during the last Mega-fauna period back when the La Brea Tar Pits in the Los Angeles area was capturing Saber Toothed Tigers, Ground Sloths, early Horses, Mastodons and such that roamed our countryside here. A much wetter period of time for sure.

Our planet operates on cycles. Some are wet, some are dry, some are a mix. Wait long enough and everything comes back around again. Ice Ages come and go and then come again......

Not all that long ago, back when Europeans were first arriving on the West Coast, there was enough snow and rain coming down on the Sierra Nevada mountains and in the Central Valley, that during the flood season there was enough fresh water flowing in the Central Valley and filling the Sacramento River and flowing into San Francisco Bay that it would be turned into an entire FRESH WATER BAY well out beyond what is now known as the Golden Gate.

Like wise during the dry season salt and brackish water would flow back up the Sacramento River all the way to Sacramento. How's that for CHANGE?!?

On the other hand....we WASTE a HELLVA LOT OF WATER!! We brought out and planted plants and trees that DEMAND more water than we naturally get out here. Kentucky Blue Grass DOES NOT belong out in our semi-arid region. Flushing good clean potable water down toilets and then out into the ocean is a complete waste of that valuable resource. There are far better ways to deal with grey and black water. In fact, almost 98% of it can be reclaimed, cleaned, purified and reused. That is a fact and we can do it now.

The answers are there.....if we want to use them, but for the most part we're just too lazy or don't care.......enough.
Well the other thing is we have gone away from septic fields, to muninciple sewers. The sewers yes we can clean them up and use the water for irrigation of plants. Honestly not sure why there have not been pushes to do that with the farming out west more.

Environmental stuff like a fish for flows diverted from farms to protect is an issue too.
 

Dm19cm

Contributing Member
It will require more than one wet winter to compensate for our many years of drought. As of now, the snow pack in the Sierra's is about 225% of normal the last I heard, the reservoirs are mainly full...but the aquifers will take time to replenish. The last I heard Lake Mead was up about a foot, but it is still only 28% of capacity, that's only 1% above last summer. Going in the right direction, but we need storage to hold what water we receive...and our Fearless Leaders don't seem to be terribly good at thinking of (or doing) the practical things like that.
 

Knoxville's Joker

Has No Life - Lives on TB
It will require more than one wet winter to compensate for our many years of drought. As of now, the snow pack in the Sierra's is about 225% of normal the last I heard, the reservoirs are mainly full...but the aquifers will take time to replenish. The last I heard Lake Mead was up about a foot, but it is still only 28% of capacity, that's only 1% above last summer. Going in the right direction, but we need storage to hold what water we receive...and our Fearless Leaders don't seem to be terribly good at thinking of (or doing) the practical things like that.
Basically it needs to rain non stop for the next 2 years to even have a hope of getting the resevoirs full again.
 

jward

passin' thru

California storms erase extreme drought from nearly all of state​




Flooding from the Sacramento and American rivers, near downtown Sacramento, Calif.


Flooding from the Sacramento and American rivers near downtown Sacramento, Calif., on Wednesday. (Fred Greaves/Reuters)


BERKELEY, Calif. — There is a silver lining to the relentless California storms that have so far killed at least 18 people and racked up an estimated $1 billion in damages: In a single week, extreme drought conditions that had gripped almost one-third of the state have been downgraded nearly everywhere.
The U.S. Drought Monitor released an updated map Thursday that accounts for the series of atmospheric river storms that have doused the state in recent weeks with more than 24 trillion gallons of water. It shows that “extreme drought,” the second-highest classification used by the agency, has been all but erased from the interior sections of the state.
U.S. Drought Monitor map


A U.S. Drought Monitor map of conditions in California. (U.S. Drought Monitor)

In a single week, the portions of the state classified as experiencing extreme drought in California fell from 27.1% to 0.32%, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Still, 46% of the state remains classified in “severe drought,” though that figure fell from 71% a week ago.
Drought conditions in California on the week of Jan. 3


Drought conditions in California from the week of Jan. 3. (U.S. Drought Monitor)

Extreme drought conditions are still widespread in Nevada and Utah, and the California storms have not affected the Colorado River Basin, including the badly depleted reservoirs Lake Mead and Lake Powell, where the federal government has been forced to implement water restrictions.
In order to completely eliminate drought conditions across the American West, several consecutive seasons of precipitation at 120% to 200% of normal would need to occur, ABC News reported. A 2022 study published in the journal Nature found that the past 22 years have been the driest period in the Southwest in the last 1,200 years.

As temperatures continue to rise thanks to humankind's burning of fossil fuels, one effect, called the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship, is that there is 7% more moisture in the atmosphere per every degree Celsius of warming. That means extreme downpours, like those in California in recent days, can become more likely when conditions are right. By the same token, however, that relationship can also spur what UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain has called “flash droughts,” in which extremely dry conditions can arise quickly, even in a year of above-average precipitation.
“The Clausius-Clapeyron relationship also increases what is known as the vapor pressure deficit,” Swain told Yahoo News in November. That means “the atmosphere’s potential to act as a giant sponge and extract more water out of the landscape has increased, even if the relative humidity has stayed the same. This Clausius-Clapeyron relationship is actually what drives the atmosphere’s capacity to dry out the landscape faster.”

For now, however, the precipitation picture is much brighter than it was even a week ago. Water levels in depleted state reservoirs have been rising, and California’s snowpack as of Wednesday measured 226% of normal. While the risks of flash flooding remain high, more rain and snow is in the forecast for the coming week.
Flood Watch has been issued Saturday morning through Monday afternoon as at least three more storms will impact the region in the coming days. Today is the dry day. Light rain Friday, moderate to heavy rain with Saturday-Monday systems. pic.twitter.com/4LbOqW3ihS
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 12, 2023

 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Reservoir Storage Levels & Summary​

  1. Home
  2. Current Conditions

Current Conditions​

Dry hillsides near Kettleman City

Satellite image of an atmospheric river bringing rain to California and other regions of the United States West Coast. Image courtesy of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego
California has a Mediterranean climate characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. The climate, however, can vary depending on geographical region. Precipitation, for example, is greater in the northern half of the State than the southern half.
California’s climate can also swing from wet years to dry years and back again. Climate change is increasing this variability.
On average, 75 percent of California's annual precipitation – made up of rain, snow, and hail – falls from November through March. The bulk of this precipitation occurs in just three months -- December, January, and February -- when California tends to get a small number of large winter storms called atmospheric rivers. A handful of atmospheric rivers -- or lack thereof -- during the winter season can determine if the year will be wet or dry.
You can now track the most current local and statewide water conditions down to your region, and even your neighborhood, on the California Water Watch website.
Detailed information for precipitation and surface water information is also available in the California Data Exchange Center (CDEC).

Daily Hydrologic Overview

Precipitation

Reservoir Conditions

Snowpack

Sierra snowpack accounts for one-third of the state's water supply.
^^^^^
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Part of the issue is man made. Environmentalists have blocked the building of any new dams for 40 years - even though bonds were passed for this purpose. In addition, dams on salmon bearing rivers are required to spill water to assist Chinook in their spring run to the ocean. Also, in the Delta where I live, water is required to be spilled to the San Francisco Bay for the benefit of the Delta smelt - a non-native species that has come up with goose eggs in the last several population counts. The fresh water also protects from salt-water intrusion from the Bay. The Delta is where significant flows from the north used to be "wheeled" to the lower central valley and southern Calif. I believe they are now considering a tunnel where flow will bypass the Delta and its regulatory issues. 1673737934380.png

Many farming areas are "served" by the Bureau of Reclamation, which built large water projects in the early 1900s. They allocate water flow for the year to farming areas like the Upper Klamath River and the "westside" of the Central Valley. Because they are federal, they have a "federal nexus" and must consult on impacts to endangered species. That is where environmentalists and tribes have sued to secure minimum lake levels and instream flows for fish. So allocations to farmers can still be shorted to secure "flushing flows" for parasites and geomorphological processes or for flows for outmigration of juvenile salmon.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Heavy Storms Help California To Almost Eliminate Extreme Drought From State​

SATURDAY, JAN 14, 2023 - 01:30 PM
Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

California, which has been reeling under the grip of drought, has received respite due to the multiple storms that hit the state and elsewhere in the past weeks, helping it deal with drought conditions in several regions and filling up many of the smaller reservoirs.

“A long-term drought, dating back to the 2019–2020 winter, continues across California, the Great Basin, and parts of the Pacific Northwest,” according to the National Drought Summary on Jan. 10

“However, the intense precipitation in California the past few weeks—particularly late December and early January—has significantly reduced drought intensity in California. Most of the state saw a 1-category improvement this week.”

According to the Jan. 12th drought map for California, regions classified as facing extreme drought conditions, dubbed “D3,” have almost disappeared from the interior areas of the state.



In just a single week, the portion of the state facing D3 conditions declined from 27.1 percent to 0.32 percent. Regions classified as facing severe drought, D2, fell from 71.14 percent to 46 percent during this period.

During the past couple of weeks, 24.5 trillion gallons of water fell in California owing to a series of atmospheric river storms. Since Dec. 26, 2022, seven atmospheric rivers have dumped up to 30 inches of rain in some regions of the state.

Filling Up Reservoirs​

The heavy rains have resulted in small reservoirs getting filled in several communities across California. In, for example, the Marin Municipal Water District, in the north of the state, all seven reservoirs recently hit 100 percent capacity.

Four of the 10 reservoirs owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District are also full. Seven reservoirs run by the East Bay Municipal Utility District are 84 percent full. However, the largest reservoirs are not yet full, officials warn, because drought conditions in the state are not yet over.

The Oroville reservoir up north in Butte County, the second-largest reservoir in California, is only 49 percent full, which is 90 percent of its historical average.

Shasta Lake is only 44 percent full, which is 77 percent of its historical average.

“The sum of the state’s six largest reservoir stores increased from 5 million as of Nov. 30, 2022, to 7.3 million as of Jan. 10, 2023 (from 54 percent of long-term average to 74 percent of long-term average),” the National Drought Summary said.

“Only one of the six largest reservoirs is near its long-term average, and three of them hold only 43–61 percent of their long-term averages as of Jan. 10.”

Drought Conditions Elsewhere​

A study published in the journal Nature last year found that the past 22 years have been the driest period in the American Southwest’s last 1,200 years.

To completely get rid of drought conditions in the region, multiple seasons of precipitation at 120–200 percent of the normal levels are estimated to be needed.

The current storm conditions are not, however, a guarantee that California’s drought conditions would end soon. In December 2021, the conditions were very wet, which raised hopes that the drought was ending.

However, the months of January, February, and March ended up being the driest in California’s recorded history.

The same happened in 2013, when a wet December was followed by a very dry January and February. Though big snow totals are welcome, there is still a “long way to go before the critical April 1 total,” said Sean de Guzman, manager of the snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit at the California Department of Water Resources, according to a news release on Jan. 31.

“It’s always great to be above average this early in the season, but we must be resilient and remember what happened last year. If January through March of 2023 turns out to be similar to last year, we would still end the water year in severe drought with only half of an average year’s snowpack,” he said.
 

9idrr

Veteran Member
The climate is changing....ALL THE TIME - OVER TIME, like hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and millions of years. We have a river bed down in San Bernardino County that is easily over a half to a mile wide. That boulder and rock strewn river bed was not made in the last hundred to a thousand years. Rather it was probably carved out during the last Mega-fauna period back when the La Brea Tar Pits in the Los Angeles area was capturing Saber Toothed Tigers, Ground Sloths, early Horses, Mastodons and such that roamed our countryside here. A much wetter period of time for sure.

Our planet operates on cycles. Some are wet, some are dry, some are a mix. Wait long enough and everything comes back around again. Ice Ages come and go and then come again......

Not all that long ago, back when Europeans were first arriving on the West Coast, there was enough snow and rain coming down on the Sierra Nevada mountains and in the Central Valley, that during the flood season there was enough fresh water flowing in the Central Valley and filling the Sacramento River and flowing into San Francisco Bay that it would be turned into an entire FRESH WATER BAY well out beyond what is now known as the Golden Gate.

Like wise during the dry season salt and brackish water would flow back up the Sacramento River all the way to Sacramento. How's that for CHANGE?!?

On the other hand....we WASTE a HELLVA LOT OF WATER!! We brought out and planted plants and trees that DEMAND more water than we naturally get out here. Kentucky Blue Grass DOES NOT belong out in our semi-arid region. Flushing good clean potable water down toilets and then out into the ocean is a complete waste of that valuable resource. There are far better ways to deal with grey and black water. In fact, almost 98% of it can be reclaimed, cleaned, purified and reused. That is a fact and we can do it now.

The answers are there.....if we want to use them, but for the most part we're just too lazy or don't care.......enough.
The utility that serves water to Oakland and the surrounding area has been providing re-claimed sewage solids and making it available as top soil amendments since the Eighties, as well as cleaning the water to meet drinking standards. Most economic use of it was to feed back into the residential/industrial area closest to the sewage plant in West Oakland, but there were rumblings about racism, since the demographics in that part of Oakland were mostly minorities. Made no sense to pump recycled water into the more affluent parts of town in the Oakland/Berkeley hills. but of course charges of inequity killed the plans.
For years, gas from the plant's methane output was just burned off at several large torches located near the east end of the Bay Bridge by the old Oakland Army Base and the notorious Cypress Structure freeway that collapsed during the Loma Prieta quake. That gas now generates enough electricity to run the whole operation with excess power that's sold to PG&E.
 

Wildweasel

F-4 Phantoms Phorever
Good chance there's a broken storm drain pipeline at the bottom of that hole. All the dirt gets washed away and a cavern gets formed that eventually collapses when the pavement above it can't support itself. Lucky a car or truck wasn't on top to make it give way.

My last year in the Air Force we had a taxiway do that when an old 6ft drain line dating back to WWII failed after 50 years. Luckily not plane or vehicle was involved, but the taxiway was just freshly paved and that was ruined.

I suspect the vibrations from the paving equipment was the last straw for the cavern roof, because they had just finished the paving job under a month before. Lots of work to replace that drain line and then several others on base after inspections triggered by that collapse.
 

Wildweasel

F-4 Phantoms Phorever
It will require more than one wet winter to compensate for our many years of drought. As of now, the snow pack in the Sierra's is about 225% of normal the last I heard, the reservoirs are mainly full...but the aquifers will take time to replenish. The last I heard Lake Mead was up about a foot, but it is still only 28% of capacity, that's only 1% above last summer. Going in the right direction, but we need storage to hold what water we receive...and our Fearless Leaders don't seem to be terribly good at thinking of (or doing) the practical things like that.
Practical doesn't buy votes or get big campaign donations.
 

Richard

TB Fanatic
I want to say thanks for all the great feedback I'm getting. yes I understand that Mead and Powell haven't really been affected by the current rains. I know that CA is a vast area and most British people don't know much about the geography and climate of the US. I'm just trying to take in the information now.
Thanks again

PS I've only just been able to read your posts today.
 
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Ira

Si Vis Pacem Parabellum
Kern County got alot of rain, my backyard was a small lake for almost a week
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Although my city and county (San Juaquin, CA) had flooding, we did ok in our neighborhood development. Someone did a walk of the levee and the river is about half way up. Apparently, several over-passess as you go further toward the Delta, were under water a few feet.

It is supposed to be dry the next week or more. I hope the river goes down before there is any snow melt.
 

Richard

TB Fanatic
It appears to me that the CA drought is well and truly over after only a few short weeks but the PTB still blame "man made" global warming both for the drought and the rain.
As far as I can ascertain it is normal for CA to have droughts, fires and atmospheric rivers and this has been so for thousands of years. For the experts who live there do you agree.
I've read several articles about what caused the sudden end to the last ice age approx 12000 years ago, they usually quote the Milankovitch cycles but without providing any detail. Quite often climate articles written some time ago never used to mention man made global warming and often this has been added later as an afterthought.
There does not however seem to be any clear analysis of what specifically caused the end of the ice age.
I mention this as whatever caused the end of the last ice age, maybe multiple factors, is causing global warming as a long term trend.

See above post they have already made releases from Lake Oroville.
 
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Terrwyn

Veteran Member
You are correct. I've lived in CA on and off since 1952. I waded through knee high water going to high school in 1957. Lightning storm so bad that year it hit our giant avocado tree.
I dont see anything new here with this weather. I wouldn't say the drought is over for my street though. Very little of this rain made it through the pass to our part of the high desert.
 

babysteps

Veteran Member
Thanks, I understand that there are a few places in CA that have not benefitted from the rain.

Yeah - like roughly a third of the state.

About 65% of Cali is considered "drought-free" now. That's extremely encouraging, but it's not over yet.

To give you a little better perspective, approximately an area the size of the UK is still under some level of drought conditions.
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
It takes more than one rainy season, EVEN A BIG ONE, to end a drought. While the reservoirs are filling up, it will take several YEARS of steady rain to refill underground aquifers. When I was growing up in the 50's there were still artesian wells across the foothills. They have been pretty much gone in the last 40-50 years. There has also been a huge increase in agricultural pumping from our underground water tables. So much so that wells are having to be drilled deeper and deeper. Our well in the northern Central Valley was 485 feet deep to get to reliable water. Many folks with much shallower wells were going dry in the summer. This was due to massive agricultural wells feeding the Almond groves.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
According to the drought maps I’ve seen on the local news over the past week, the California drought is officially over.
 

SNOWSQUAW

Veteran Member
no- they are taking so cal off of any drought restrictions but they TAKE OUR WATER down there to them SO we will have restrictions up here. it is stupid and political. There is tons of snow- literally - up here. I have 17 feet by my front door for crying out loud but the climate nazi's will not allow this to be a good year for water. SO tired of the politics!
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
They are now spilling water from several N. CA dams. This water will go downstream to the sea. (Hopefully, the levees hold and it doesn't overflow.) CA enviros refused to allow the building of additional water storage even though CA voters approved bond money for it.

They keep the drought regulations on the books with the tiered rates so they can collect revenue during plenty.
 
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