For all the rain that central California got, southern California got little or none. The Colorado river continues to shrink. It is now at the point where the seven states that take water from the river cannot agree on usage rates, and the federal gov't will have to get involved to decide who gets what. This is the third year in a row that the federal gov't has had to restrict water usage (southern Nevada had to accept a 7% reduction in water last year). The situation appears to be significantly worse this year. As the Colorado River Shrinks, Washington Prepares to Spread the Pain (yahoo.com)
Finally, some rain is heading for southern California and inland to Arizona and other states. Storm systems bringing rain, snow to the West this week
People outside of Scottsdale, AZ are getting their water supply cut off. These outer suburb houses relied on getting water trucked to their homes, but Arizona has no water to give them. Tapped out: An Arizona community symbolizes West’s water woes
Another epic storm on its way to California. This one will bring rain and snow from Oregon to the Mexican border. A blizzard is forecast for the mountains outside Los Angeles for the second time ever (first in 1989). A wind gust of 73 mph was recorded on the Golden Gate Bridge. The roof on one building in S.F. was partially blown off. Snowmaker storm of epic proportions moving into SoCal: 'We're getting the full brunt'
Surprised to see many reservoirs still below their historical averages for this time of year Home Page
Just think. We could have significantly fewer hurricanes hitting the Florida coastline if the Saharans had reduced their carbon emissions just a hair back then.
Snowing in Hollywood. The mountains around L.A. are forecast to get 5 feet of snow, and winds are expected to gust up to 75 mph. Downtown L.A. may experience flooding with 8" of rain forecast. 'Strangest winter we’ve had yet': Southern California sees rare blizzard conditions, heavy rain
Another storm coming. At least the orchards are getting irrigated well. I hope they are flooding all ground they can to help the shallow aquifers
Lake Tahoe and parts of Cali buried in snow. Wonder how seriously they take storm prep to be able to manage 7 - 10 days without being able to get out. Surprised to see many reservoirs in southern California still below their historical averages. Lake Shasta in north Cali still not to historical average either Major Water Supply Reservoirs (ca.gov) Colorado and Utah both above average snowfall so hopefully that helps GSL, Lake Powel and Mead gain some storage back in the spring
Its been a very cold winter as well so runoff is pretty low compared to previous years. The base mid mountain for most resorts is 170+”. There are going to be torrents on water going in to the Colorado river and reservoirs (though the impact on Lake Mead as forecast seems not to be so great. Of note CA has a $20B proposal to build tunnels to capture and divert some of the runoff that will otherwise find its way to the sea but the folks in NA particularly farmers are trying to block it someone needs to give them the what’s what…
Why would they want to block it? Unless the proposal is to divert water that isn't runoff as well so they can water golf courses and people's lawns.
slow the flow of the river and the saltwater backs further up the river. california would do better to capture and inject stormwater runoff into local aquifers to move ag requirements from surface water to aquifers. there are lots of old ag wells that have went dry that could be turned into injection wells to store that stormwater underground instead of letting it run off into the ocean. that would have the added benefit of helping to reduce subsidence.
So why don’t they do it? Water wars have already started in the US. Why not force equitable sharing says the commie in me…
they have started to update their approach, just not on a large enough scale. And there is some uncertainty with respect to the ability of the aquifers to regain their storage capacity where subsidence has occurred and the voids that were once filled with water collapsed. Here’s how California is trying to hold on to its rainwater – The Hill Researchers across the West are investigating and implementing groundwater recharge projects, or man-made interventions aimed at helping aquifers replenish themselves. “The general concept is you’ve got enough water on the surface. You’d like to put it in the ground,” explained Andrew Fisher, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Because more groundwater has been pumped out of the ground over the years than has been naturally replenished, more space is available underground to hold additional surface water. That space, “which is vastly greater than the sum of all of the surface storage reservoirs that exist now or could be built,” is itself a resource, said Michael Kiparsky, water program director at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Projects aimed at moving surface water into those spaces include putting water in percolation basins and letting it settle into the ground or building injection wells that lead the water directly into aquifers. Over 340 projects have been proposed by communities in California, while the state itself has a goal of expanding average groundwater recharge by at least 500,000 acre-feet each year. One acre-foot is equivalent to an acre of land with water 1 foot deep, Fisher explained. more background CA WATER COMMISSION: Stormwater Capture and Aquifer Recharge – MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK | Water news (mavensnotebook.com)
Shocked that several reservoirs are still below hisstorical averages. ot...Mormon church pledges water rights to GSL Mormon Church gives water to boost imperiled Great Salt Lake
I would have thought the 600+ inches of snow in the mountains around SLC would just flow in part in to the great salt lake. I’m clearly no engineer but couldn’t you build a canal? Or maybe that’s not enough and you need rain at lower levels? It’s not well explained.
much of it will but that is only 2x normal snowfall and a lake that big takes a lot of water to raise. It will be interesting to see how much it comes up. I have seen recent projections that Lake Powell will rise 50' and Lake Meade will fall 20' based on current snowfall so it seems that most of the moisture is not reaching the Colorado River basin. OPERATION PLAN FOR COLORADO RIVER RESERVOIRS (usbr.gov)
The snow is still falling. Give it some time to melt. The southern Sierras have set their record for the most amount of snow in recorded history (56.4 feet and counting). The entire state is closing in on the all-time record, also. Snowpack in southern Sierra hits all-time record levels. How deep is that?
