‘Monsoons’ don’t really help: Friant won’t get extra 5 percent
It seems strange to say monsoons during a drought were hoped to provide at least a little bit of a respite from the extremely dry conditions, but that really wasn’t the case. Even in drought conditions it’s not uncommon for California to receive monsoonal rains in early August and that again happened this year. But while the monsoonal rains provided a brief improvement in overall water conditions, they really didn’t have an impact on overall water availability. The Friant Water Authority, which governs the Friant-Kern Canal and serves the Friant Division in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley, stated the monsoonal rains were good enough to increase the federal Bureau of Reclamation’s water allocation from 30 to 35 percent of normal.