Drought, Weather & Snowpack

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, got the Coyote Valley Dam project — in one 13-word sentence — on a list of feasibility studies for some 30 Corps projects from Alabama to Alaska to be expedited by the Secretary of the Army. Tucked into the 122-page Water Resources Development Act of 2018, the list was approved two weeks ago on a lopsided 408-2 vote in the House and was forwarded to the Senate.

That oceanfront property in Stinson Beach you’ve dreamed about may not be so perfect after all. A report published Monday finds that nearly 4,400 homes in Marin County might not make it beyond a 30-year mortgage because of encroaching seawater.

The fire 13 miles (43 kilometers) north of Durango is in the Four Corners Region where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet — the epicenter of a large U.S. Southwest swath of exceptional drought, the worst category of drought. Moderate to extreme drought conditions affect larger areas of those four states plus parts of Nevada, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

A fast-moving brush fire destroyed eight homes in the Utah tourist town of Moab, while more than 3,000 people in Colorado and Wyoming fled multiple wildfires scorching the drought-stricken U.S. West on Wednesday.

The California Department of Water Resources is pleased to announce a 15-day public comment period for the Statewide Flood Emergency Response Grant Program Round 3, Draft List of Awards. After careful review of the applications received from the 2018 solicitation, DWR is proposing to provide funding for 25 grants as detailed in the draft list of awards.

El Niño was long considered a reliable tool for predicting future precipitation in the southwestern United States, but its forecasting power has diminished in recent cycles, possibly due to global climate change. In a study published today in Nature Communications, scientists and engineers at the University of California, Irvine demonstrate a new method for projecting wet or dry weather in the winter ahead.

After a 14-month closure, Caltrans announced Tuesday Highway 1 will reopen at Mud Creek at the end of July following the $54 million construction of a new roadway atop a massive landslide. The reopening will take place close to two months ahead of schedule.

The frantic phone calls to the Community Water Center began in the summer of 2014. In the 7,000-strong unincorporated community of East Porterville, nestled against California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, homeowners’ wells were failing amid a historic drought.

After 220 days of skiing and snowboarding, Mammoth Mountain’s shredding season will come to an end on Sunday, June 17.