California’s rainy season is here. What does it mean for water supply?
LOS ANGELES — After a dry start to the winter, the rainy season in California is finally underway.
December downpours sent water flooding the streets of coastal areas of Ventura County and the city of Santa Barbara. Flash flooding hit San Diego in late January, and earlier this month back-to-back atmospheric, river-driven storms arrived, causing wind damage in Northern California and hundreds of mudslides in Los Angeles. Another storm blew through Presidents Day weekend.
The frequent floods have staved off a return to the drought that has plagued the state for the past decade. Some parts of California are so wet these days that even Death Valley National Park has a lake big enough for kayakers. Still, the state is not on track for a repeat of last year’s epic rain. And not nearly as much snow has fallen in the mountains.
Here’s a look at California winter so far:
Nearly 18 inches of rain fell in downtown Los Angeles, which is already more than an entire year’s worth of annual precipitation measured from October 1 to September 30 of the following year. This is now the fourth wettest February downtown since weather records began in 1877, according to the National Weather Service.
But while rainfall in Southern California has reached historic levels, it remains to be seen whether the year will be considered very wet for the state as a whole.
Northern California is just approaching its annual average with about a month and a half left of the wet season, which “makes it very difficult to get ‘extremely wet,’” said Jay R. Lund, the Center’s deputy director. for Watershed Sciences from the University of California, Davis.
“We’re already wet enough that it won’t be a year of deep drought, and the really wet years are already much wetter than this,” Lund said.
The vital Sierra Nevada snowpack, which normally supplies about 30% of California’s water when it melts, has recovered somewhat after a slow start.
The water content of the snowpack on Wednesday was 86% of normal amounts so far and 69% of the average of April 1, when it is normally at its peak, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
On January 30, water content was just 52% of average for that date – a far cry from a year earlier, when it was around 200% of average water content, thanks to repeated atmospheric rivers that dramatically ended the driest three years period in California. period recorded.
Even with the slow start to the current rainy season, water storage in California’s major reservoirs has remained well above average thanks to runoff from last year’s historic snowpack.
Some reservoirs have released water into rivers to make room for incoming storm runoff and to maintain flood protection of downstream areas.
The Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday that the State Water Project predicts that public water utilities serving 27 million people will receive 15% of requested supplies, up from an initial 10% allocation in December.
The ministry said the assessment does not take into account the impact of this month’s storms, and the allocation could be further revised in mid-March.
Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, was at 134% of average to date, but the department noted that the State Water Project headwaters in Northern California have seen below-average precipitation from storms over the past two months got.
Contractors for the Central Valley Project, a federally managed system that supplies major agricultural districts, will also receive 15% of their requested water supplies, federal authorities said Wednesday. That could change if more storms arrive.