We’re facing another very dry year, which follows one of the driest on record for Northern California and one of the hottest on record statewide.
The 2012-16 drought caused unprecedented stress to California’s ecosystems and pushed many native species to the brink of extinction, disrupting water management throughout the state. Are we ready to manage our freshwater ecosystems through another drought?
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.
On the tail end of the second dry winter in a row, with water almost certain to be in short supply this summer, California water officials are apparently planning to largely drain the equivalent of the state’s two largest reservoirs to satisfy the thirst of water-wasting farmers. Gov. Gavin Newsom must stop this irresponsible plan, which threatens the environmental health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the water supply for about one-third of the Bay Area residents. We should be saving water, not wasting it. Employing conservation measures now will lessen mandatory water restrictions in the event of a long-term drought.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another drought.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing.
This updates a post from December on the likelihood of California entering a second dry year. Normally, a second dry year brings drought operations for California’s overall water system operations.
Today, it is even likelier that California is entering a multi-year drought.
Precipitation conditions have improved somewhat with a nice atmospheric river this last week, but remain 51% of average for this time of year for the Sacramento Valley. (San Joaquin and Tulare basins are 61% and 47% of historical seasonal average precipitation so far.) Snowpack has improved somewhat with very recent storms, but is about as scarce as the precipitation.
California’s increasingly volatile warming climate is making droughts more intense, and complicating water management. A just-launched commodity futures market for the state’s water provides a new tool for farmers, municipalities and other interested parties to ensure against water price shocks arising from drought-fueled shortages.
Taking a Wall Street approach to an essential natural resource has prompted both fear and hype. Will California experience a new Gold Rush in water? Will speculation boost the cost of water? Perhaps both the fear and the hype are unwarranted.
A drenching storm that brought California much-needed rain in what had been a dry winter wound down Friday after washing out Highway 1 near Big Sur, burying the Sierra Nevada in snow and causing muddy flows from slopes burned bare by wildfires.
The atmospheric river weather system that barreled ashore in Northern California early in the week rolled quickly through Southern California overnight and was moving east before dawn. Remnants unleashed occasional downpours and hail.
Bay Area water agencies, starved for snow and rain, are encouraged by this week’s storm system.
But managers say it’s too early to say if it will have a lasting impact.
The dry 2020 and the lack of snow this season has water managers in seven states preparing for the first time for cutbacks outlined in drought contingency plans drafted two years ago. A sobering forecast released this week by the Bureau of Reclamation shows the federally owned Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs and critical storage for Colorado River water and its 40 million users — dipping near-record-low levels.
