Will the west coast rainstorms end the western drought

No, it will take years of a good snowpack every winter to fully reverse the drought.

 

No. Most of the water one way or the other flows back into the ocean.

How California could save up its rain to ease future droughts — instead of watching epic atmospheric river rainfall drain into the Pacific

 

I would think it will reduce wildfire risk in certain areas

 

Doubtful, and drought can actually make flooding more acute because the water can’t permeate hardpan soil as quickly as “healthy” groundsoil.

One weather event like this might buy them 1 season of relative water abundance, but it doesn’t reverse long term trends. By the end of next dry season wouldn’t be surprising if this rain was a distant (evaporated) memory.

 

It will cause new growth, which may eventually increase wildfire risk when it dries out over the course of their dry season.

 

That makes sense. But I'm talking a shorter time frame

 

Damn new growth. Just hate nature's cycles.

 

No, as @BLING mentioned, it will be mostly run off. The west doesn't really plan around large water retention like we do in the SE. It's all about diversion. They have canals and reservoirs but they are mostly dependent on snow melt and more controlled precipitation. Not this kind of event.

 

While on the surface it may sound like great news that the west is getting lots of rain, getting a lot in a short time frame does not help due to the flashflood/mudslide issue. The soil does not absorb a lot it and it just runs off, washing away roads and other structures. The bigger boost is mountain snow pack. Once the wet season is over the west depends on meltwater from that snowpack for everything from ag to cities etc.
Case in point, the winter of 2016 brought heavy snows to the mountains, which was great, but the following years were dry; meaning the persistent drought was not solved. Same thing here. Year after year of heavy mountain snows is what it will take to reverse the drought.

 

The snow pack this year will be large though, so come summer they will be in better shape.
Lake Meade and Lake Powell probably need a decade of normal weather to get back to even though. I read an article yesterday saying that last year, only 59 percent of the runoff made it to Mead and Powell because the land was so parched it soaked up a good chunk of the snow pack water on the way. The year before it was less than 30 percent. And warmer weather means more evaporation, more people means more stress on the already stressed system etc. and the states involved have only agreed to cut 214k of the 500k acre feet they need to.
But maybe California will have enough that they cane stop pulling from Powell and Meade and ease the pressure there a bit. By the way, because I’m a nerd, I actually check Lake Mead’s level from time to time. It’s here, you can see this latest set of storms has barely moved the needle.
https://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp

 

This isn’t “cyclical”, it’s likely a one off event.

If it was cyclical all their drought problems would be solved!

 

Well, ten years from now we will know cyclical or not.

 

I recall reading this from a month before. Would be prescient if this is what is happening.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clim...8/12/megaflood-california-flood-rain-climate/

 

I havent been following too closely but I do know watersheds a bit, and if this rain is being held in CA by the Sierra Nevadas (as it often is), it's not gonna do much for the Colorado river and it's reservoirs.

If it is pounding the Wasatch and Rockies, that's good, but as others said, there's no quick fix. We'd need many years of solid precipe to get back to reasonable levels.

Then again, if we got historic deluges, would anyone be surprised?

 

The good news is the Sierra and the Rockies are both getting good snow dumps so far. Hope it keeps up as it is early in the season.

 

Slightly OT. The Griffith Observatory is one of the coolest places to visit in LA if you get the chance

 

I think he was talking about plant life cycles, not rain cycles.

 

Those two lakes in particular are just tragic with the bathtub rings. I don't care about California's lawns and golf courses but their agriculture is essential to the country and that needs a lot of water. Their soil and climate allow for growing so many fruits vegetables and nuts that I don't think we could do without it. Most crops in the rest of the country are either corn, soybeans or wheat.