As we get closer to winter, the phrase “atmospheric river” is more likely to pop up in headlines. Here’s an explanation of what these phenomena are and how they impact weather in Northern California.
Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push […]
It’s still more than seven weeks before the official start of winter (Dec. 21), but weekend storms in Colorado’s high country are reason enough to look in on snowpack levels that will eventually provide the water that flows to Lake Mead. A month into the 2023 “water year,” snowpack levels are slightly above normal in […]
An El Niño winter snowfall map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted more good news for Lake Mead. After years of drought the lake, located in Nevada and Arizona, reached drastically low levels in the summer of 2022. However, water levels have since started to recover because of above-average precipitation and snowpack that melted throughout this […]
In the sun-split desert of the Coachella Valley, life here is only possible with water from elsewhere. The water that grows our food, the water we drink and the water we exist around come from the special aquifers below the valley and the Colorado River.
America’s stewardship of one of its most precious resources, groundwater, relies on a patchwork of state and local rules so lax and outdated that in many places oversight is all but nonexistent, a New York Times analysis has found. The majority of states don’t know how many wells they have, the analysis revealed. Many have incomplete […]
The “Dust Bowl” drought of the 1930s brought nearly a decade of dry conditions to the Great Plains, causing many farmers to flee their lands and livelihoods. Looking further back, tree-ring and lake-sediment records indicate that “megadroughts” have occurred in North America over the last thousand years. By looking back at historical data, communities can […]
Now that we’re knee-deep in the long-term process to save the Colorado River, almost no one is asking whether we’ve done enough to stabilize it for the next few years. A wet winter and billions of dollars in funding already solved that problem, right?
Below-average precipitation and snowpack during 2020-22 and depleted surface and groundwater supplies pushed California into a drought emergency that brought curtailment orders and calls for modernizing water rights.
Environmental activists in Bakersfield have won an initial victory in their legal fight to keep water flowing in the Kern River, which for many years was reduced to a dry, sandy riverbed. A judge has granted a preliminary injunction preventing water diversions that would dry up the river, requiring sufficient water to provide for fish […]
