The City of San Diego has announced that today it has begun releasing water from El Capitan Reservoir in Lakeside, in anticipation of a potential spill due to Tropical Storm Hilary. Flowing water will be visible downstream from the dam in El Monte Valley and beyond. The notice is posted on the city’s webpage for El Capitan Reservoir.
Parts of Southern California and the U.S. Southwest on Monday faced the threat of flash flooding along with landslides and mudslides after storm Hilary unleashed record-breaking downpours overnight. Some 17 million Americans were under flood and high-wind advisories, watches and warnings as remnants of the storm moved north, dumping heavy rains from the California-Mexico border up through Las Vegas and into parts of the Northwest, the National Weather Service said.
California is no stranger to big swings between wet and dry weather. The “atmospheric river” storms that have battered the state this winter are part of a system that has long interrupted periods of drought with huge bursts of rain — indeed, they provide somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all precipitation on the West Coast.
The parade of storms that has struck California in recent months has dropped more than 30 trillion gallons of water on the state, refilling reservoirs that had sat empty for years and burying mountain towns in snow.
