Devastating floods are almost annual
occurrences in the West and in California. With the anticipated
sea level rise and other impacts of a changing climate,
particularly heavy winter rains, flood management is increasingly
critical in California. Compounding the issue are human-made
flood hazards such as levee stability and stormwater runoff.
In recent years, it is the dry side of California that has
captured headlines: dwindling reservoirs where boat ramps lead
only to sand, almond orchards ripped up for lack of irrigation
water, catastrophic wildfires that rage through desiccated
forests and into towns. In the longer view, though, the state’s
water problems have come just as often from deluge as from
drought. Other parts of the country can count on reasonably
steady precipitation, but California has always been different,
teetering between drenching winters and blazing summers,
between wet years and dry ones — fighting endlessly to exert
control over a flow of water that vacillates, sometimes wildly,
between too much and too little.
Groundwater recharge – or the lack of it – was a driving force
behind the sweep of new board members who took over the
behemoth Westlands Water District last fall. “Urgently develop
groundwater recharge,” was the top plank in the platform of
four candidates who won election in November. And the district
has, indeed, built a 30,000-acre network of grower-owned
recharge ponds with enough capacity to recharge, or absorb,
3,300 acre feet a day into the overtapped aquifer. So, it
was surprising that the district showed it was only recharging
a total of about 572 acre feet per day through April
30, according to a report at Westlands’ May 16 board
meeting. A map presented at the meeting shows only a small
fraction of recharge ponds in use.
As California contends with floods this year, PPIC Water Policy
Center director Ellen Hanak spoke with Insurance Commissioner
Ricardo Lara about how to better protect the state’s residents
from flood risk, which is growing in our changing
climate. How many people are insured for floods in
California? There are two important things to know about the
flood insurance landscape in California. First, Californians
have an insurance protection gap: only 2% of Californians
have flood insurance. The vast majority don’t have it, even
though flooding is expensive and common. Second, we have a
knowledge gap: most people don’t know that home insurance
doesn’t cover floods, or that much of the state is at risk of
flooding.
After an unexpected wet winter, California’s drought-addled
Central Valley now faces dangerous floods as a historic
snowpack melts — even as the state moves to store the liquid
gold as quickly as possible. Once the largest freshwater
lake west of the Mississippi River at about 650 square miles,
it hosted a diverse ecosystem and many Indigenous people. When
the lake dried as rivers were diverted for cities and farming,
agricultural communities appeared thanks to the rich soil.
Today, the basin spans several counties and produces more than
half of the state’s agricultural output, according to the
Public Policy Institute. Those crops account for 97% of
regional water use, often relying groundwater pumping in dry
years.
After a four-year hiatus, El Niño is widely expected to make a
grand reentrance this summer, ushering in the possibility of
yet another wet, stormy winter. “It looks like it’s full steam
ahead,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a live
YouTube interview last week, in which he placed the likelihood
of a strong El Niño event at greater than 50% — even as
projections still vary widely. … [El Niño] can
reposition the jet stream and funnel storms toward the West
Coast, often resulting in increased rainfall across thousands
of miles, said John Monteverdi, emeritus professor of
meteorology at San Francisco State University. But a wet
winter is not at all guaranteed, he said, noting that only one
out of about six current models predicts a strong El Niño as
this year progresses.
Scientists observe this downward motion of land, called land
subsidence, across the planet. While some regions of land
experience uplift, many parts of Earth’s surface are sinking —
fast. Scientists are especially concerned for sinking locations
near the coast, which are at a higher risk for flooding as sea
levels rise in a warming world. Hurricanes and extreme rainfall
events can also bring more damage to such low-lying areas.
Toxic waste lurking in the soil under the San Francisco Bay
community of West Oakland, and places like it, is the next
environmental threat in a neighborhood already burdened by
pollution. Residents in these communities of color are calling
for climate justice as a form of reparations. The stability of
buried contamination from Oakland’s industrial past relies on
it staying in the soil. But once the rising waters of San
Francisco Bay press inland and get underneath these pockets of
pollution, a certain amount of that waste will not stay in
place. Instead, it will begin to move. More than 130 sites lie
in wait. Human-caused climate change is already forcing this
groundwater rise in West Oakland and other parts of the Bay
Area.
Among the coveted places to live in this city, if you have the
money, is West Cliff Drive. How much longer that will be true
is the question. The cliff-top road is falling into the Pacific
in large chunks, leaving gaping holes and closing lanes along a
normally busy street. A process that has taken place over
centuries is quickening after a rare series of winter and
spring storms that brought abnormally high tides, potent surf
and lots of rain. The sea is taking back the land. It is
happening at various speeds along much of California’s coast,
changing the ragged western edge of the country and threatening
neighborhoods, highways and ways of life.
The slow-motion rebirth of Tulare Lake has inundated farm
fields and threatened levees, homes and whole towns. On Monday,
the state projected the lake would reach its peak in the next
week or so, but the floodwaters will linger for perhaps two
years. The return of what used to be the largest lake west of
the Mississippi has captured our attention as one of the most
dramatic climatic events of 2023. Yet the flooded crops and
tenuous levees at Tulare Lake represent only a fraction of the
statewide and nationwide landscape now subject to greater
floods of the global warming era. -Written by author Tim Palmer, whose forthcoming
book “Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our
Urgent Flooding Crisis,” will be published in 2024.
High water levels at California reservoirs and other waterways
could pose a threat to outdoor recreation this Memorial Day
weekend, prompting officials to warn against swimming or
boating in rivers teeming from winter’s heavy rainfall.
… Holiday travelers are being asked to avoid waterways
overflowing with melted snow from this year’s record-breaking
storm season. Adding to the risk, water managers
have begun diverting water from major reservoirs as
they approach capacity, and sending it into rivers across
the state. Placer officials have reason to urge caution:
several people have already been swept into the American River
that courses through the county, necessitating extensive search
and rescue missions.
California officials believe that tens of thousands of people
living near Tulare Lake are unlikely to experience flooding
this year, thanks to improving weather conditions and swift
planning following a series of powerful storms that refilled
the basin for the first time in decades. The backstory : Tulare
Lake in California’s Central Valley was once the largest
freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, fed by snowmelt
from the Sierra Nevada each spring. However, the lake
eventually went dry as settlers dammed and diverted water for
agriculture.
Rafting is a Colorado sport that involves risk, just like
skiing or riding in the winter. Just like skiing or riding, it
also becomes riskier depending on conditions, but there are
ways to mitigate that risk and still enjoy one of the state’s
most prominent activities along our rivers. … The Garfield
County Sheriff’s Office has warned the Colorado River is seeing
levels three to four times as fast and full as they are used to
seeing, making rafting riskier going through Glenwood Canyon.
Still, that’s not the case for all Colorado rivers right now.
Ken Murphy with Adventure Outdoors and Lakota Guides rafting
company said it’s up to them to pick and choose the locations
that are safe to bring guests down, and which will not be a
good option.
It’s something a lot of people have noticed around Southern
California lately: bugs. Bugs, bugs and more bugs, everywhere
you look. … It’s not just nuisance bugs and gnats but it’s
also mosquitoes and bees. It all adding up to a busy season so
far for pest control experts. “I’ve been real busy,” said Nick
Cappellano, who owns Allied Pest Control. “I average between 16
and 22 jobs a day, responding to all sorts of things: ants,
spiders, ear wigs, which are considered the pincher bugs that
end up in the house.” For those wondering why we’re seemingly
under attack this spring, experts say look no further than all
the record rain we received over the winter.
During the El Niño of 1983, Californians counted their
blessings. The warm Pacific waters sloshing eastward certainly
brought heavy spring rains and record snow. But the state
largely escaped the flood risks being frantically managed
farther east. That spring, engineers famously resorted to
plywood to add just a few more inches to the 710-foot-high Glen
Canyon Dam as they struggled to prevent the second-largest
reservoir in the United States from being overtopped by El
Niño-swollen waters. Back in California, a top flood official
noted that it was “luck,” not preparation, that spared the
state a similar fate. El Niño, a climate pattern driven by
shifts in winds and currents in the tropical Pacific Ocean, is
the stuff of nightmares the world over:
Widespread crop
failures, famine, disease, floods, extreme
heat, droughts, wildfires and even violent
conflict have all been linked to the recurring climate
anomaly.
Written by Justin S. Mankin a geography professor
at Dartmouth College, and Christopher W. Callahan a
doctoral candidate in geography at Dartmouth
For much of the last few decades, when the sky didn’t produce
enough water for his cows and crops, Dino Giacomazzi — like
most farmers in California’s southern Central Valley — pumped
it from the earth. Underground aquifers, vast bank accounts of
stored water, were drained. Now, after a historically wet
winter, Giacomazzi and the state of California want to put some
of that water back. “It is a no-brainer, win-win, multi-benefit
opportunity,” said Giacomazzi, standing on his Central Valley
farm, which depends on groundwater to grow almonds, lettuce and
tomatoes for pizza sauce. More water stored underground means
fewer flooded farms, and more water available to farmers like
him during the next inevitable drought.
A warm spell has hastened the melt-off from Yosemite National
Park’s nearly unprecedented snowpack and brought minor flooding
to Yosemite Valley. Over the past week, the Merced River has
periodically spilled onto the valley’s roads, trails and
campgrounds, and more on-and-off flooding is expected through
the Memorial Day weekend. Yosemite Valley closed for two days
in late April because of the flood risk, but park officials say
they don’t expect to go that route this time. They’re advising
visitors to be mindful of high water on roads and caution
against getting too close to rivers and creeks. Already, two
people caught in the swift currents of the Merced River had to
be plucked out by rescue crews.
Dairy operators in Tulare and Kings counties say they are
thankful to return to the normal rhythms of feeding, milking
and calving after historic flooding in March burst levees and
forced dairies to rapidly evacuate their cows. The resumption
of dairy activities is welcome news in two neighboring counties
where milk and milk products are top commodities. Tulare County
is the state’s leading milk and milk products producer. Kings
County ranks fourth. Peter de Jong, owner of Cloverdale Dairy
in Hanford, evacuated 5,000 cattle over two days in pouring
rain in March, a feat he and his staff say they never want to
repeat.
The El Nino effect produced by the warming of the north Pacific
Ocean generated a heavy rain pattern in early 2023 not seen for
several years in California. These storms delayed the planting
season in some areas and contributed to rising food prices,
while increasing costs for farmers still recovering from high
feed prices incurred during the drought. The National Weather
Service reported that California received an estimated 78
trillion gallons of water during the winter and early spring
2022–2023 delivered by more than a dozen atmospheric rivers,
narrow bands of intense moisture, that drenched the state. As a
result, some 60% of the state’s farmland had surplus water.
Floods, swollen rivers, road closures — Colorado’s spring
runoff season is in full swing and much of the snow in the
state’s mountains hasn’t melted yet. Colorado saw
higher-than-average snowfall build up on the Western Slope this
year, a boon for irrigators and other water users who rely on
the Colorado River Basin which spans Colorado, tribal lands,
six Western states and parts of Mexico. But the snowmelt, with
the help of recent weather, is leading to high runoff and its
adverse impacts are popping up around the state like a game of
whack-a-mole. Beyond monitoring for mudslides and rockfalls
loosened by rain and high runoff, the Colorado Department of
Transportation is also watching bridges and roads for possible
closures.
The risk of catastrophic flooding in the Tulare Lake Basin has
diminished as cool temperatures have predominated this spring,
flattening the melt curve of the Sierra’s epic snowpack, state
officials said Monday. We are “not forecasting nearly as severe
of damage as perhaps we were looking at several weeks ago,”
Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communications for
the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said at
a news conference Monday. “However, we want to strongly
emphasize that we are not out of the woods by any stretch of
the imagination.” Just a few weeks ago, officials worried that
floodwaters from the melting Sierra Nevada snowpack would surge
down the Tule, Kings, Kaweah and Kern rivers and topple berms,
breach levees and inundate towns such as Corcoran and
Stratford.
A time capsule buried near the base of the Bay Bridge on Monday
to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the East Bay Municipal
Water District could be underwater at its own centennial,
swamped by the ravaging effects of climate change. Containing
historic items — including a fossil recently found in one of
the district’s watersheds, Monday’s edition of the East Bay
Times and a letter from the board of directors — the
five-foot-long iron pipe-shaped capsule is meant to embody the
rich history of the water district, commonly known as EBMUD.
The chosen location, a maintenance facility in West Oakland
that previously served as the utility’s headquarters, is
symbolic of the challenges EBMUD faces in the coming century.
Just 13 feet above sea level, climate models predict this part
of Oakland could be underwater in another 100 years.
“Old superlatives have been dusted off and new ones count to
better describe the tragedy, damage, and trauma associated with
the State’s latest ‘unusual’ weather experience.” DWR Bulletin
69-83, California High Water 1982-83, p.1 … Here are a
few long-term lessons from the 1983 and 2023
experiences: California often has wet and very wet years,
just as it often has dry and very dry years. Flooding can
occur in all parts of California, and many parts can flood in
the same year. Few areas should feel entirely safe from
floods. Flood hazard zones should be updated to consider
subsidence, land use changes and climate change.
Rising seas and hammering waves could radically transform
California beaches by the end of the century, pushing the
coastline straight through homes in Stinson Beach and right
near a wastewater treatment plant in San Francisco. In Half
Moon Bay, a beach beloved by surfers would lose all its sand.
These are some of the worst-case scenarios in a new report
projecting that a majority of California beaches could
disappear by 2100 if more isn’t done to curb greenhouse
emissions and take measures to protect the coast. The dire
outlook, which foresees a range of 25% to 70% of the state’s
beaches eroding completely, is based on models that incorporate
historic rates of coastal erosion and projections for sea level
rise and future wave heights. Though the study covers a long
period, Californians got a preliminary glimpse this winter when
storms pummeled local beaches.
Snow is the lifeblood of California rivers, and this year a
historic bounty fell in the high Sierra. In April, the
California Department of Water Resources reported the biggest
snowpack in 70 years — 237% of average in the Central Sierra.
The only comparable year is 1983, a mythical season at the dawn
of the commercial rafting industry that is still reverently, if
dimly, remembered in guide camps throughout the state and
around the world. Those tales tend to focus on epic runs and
high-water records, but the takeaway for regular folks planning
a whitewater adventure this season isn’t just about big water.
It’s also about an abundance of options. Free-flowing rivers
that rarely run past May will enjoy ample flows into midsummer,
while many dam-controlled rivers will be in through Labor Day.
It’s Earth’s original disrupter — a recurring climate pattern
so powerful that it can drive global average temperature to
record highs, and generate both cliff-crumbling storms and
crop-destroying droughts across the planet. Now, after a
long hiatus, El Niño is showing signs of a strong return
in 2023. [Last] week, federal forecasters said there was a 55%
chance that a strong El Niño would occur, effectively flooding
the surface of the Equatorial Pacific with water so unusually
warm that it can alter weather patterns and devastate some
ocean fisheries. … For California — a state already
bracing for potentially devastating floods due to epic snowmelt
— a strong El Niño could bring a second consecutive winter of
above-average precipitation, accompanied by landslides, floods
and coastal erosion.
The Kern River is swollen with so much runoff from the epic
Sierra Nevada snowpack that officials have opened a rarely used
relief valve, diverting floodwaters into the California
Aqueduct to be used as drinking water in Southern California.
Opening this flow relief valve, known as the Kern River
Intertie, is intended to prevent floodwaters from reaching
Tulare Lake, a typically dry lake bed that in recent weeks has
experienced a dramatic resurgence, replenished by powerful
winter storms and, now, heavy spring runoff. … Over two
months, state officials said, about 75,000 acre-feet of Kern
River water will pass into the aqueduct, enough to supply
approximately 225,000 homes for a year.
The floods that sent rivers of mud tearing through towns in
Italy’s northeast are another drenching dose of climate
change’s all-or-nothing weather extremes, something that has
been happening around the globe, scientists say. The coastal
region of Emilia-Romagna was twice struck, first by heavy rain
two weeks ago on drought-parched ground that could not absorb
it, overflowing riverbanks overnight, followed by this week’s
deluge that killed 13 and caused billions in damages. In a
changing climate, more rain is coming, but it’s falling on
fewer days in less useful and more dangerous downpours.
In California’s Central Valley, vibrant wildflower blooms are
drying into brittle fuel for wildfires. Now land managers
and property owners are under deadlines to clear brush and
mitigate risk before peak fire season later this year. The
state’s wet winter, which saw nearly two years-worth of
precipitation, resulted in a so-called super bloom blanketing
the low hills of the state’s valleys with yellow fiddlenecks,
purple lupine and orange California poppies. Tourists flocked
from all over the U.S. and the world to see them, and satellite
photos even captured their colorful streaks from space.
Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to unveil a sweeping package of
legislation and sign an executive order Friday to make it
easier to build transportation, clean energy, water and other
infrastructure across California, a move intended to capitalize
on an infusion of money from the Biden administration to boost
climate-friendly construction projects. The proposal aims to
shorten the contracting process for bridge and water projects,
limit timelines for environmental litigation and simplify
permitting for complicated developments in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta and elsewhere.
Thanks to record rain this month, no drought remains anywhere
along Colorado’s urban corridor for the first time since August
2021. Statewide drought has dropped 19% in 1 week. The
weekly drought update released Thursday morning showed the
percentage of Colorado experiencing at least abnormally dry
conditions dropped about 13%. That’s a very big change for the
weekly drought monitor which typically changes at a glacial
pace for improving or worsening conditions. A week ago,
the map looked different with 58% of Colorado including Denver
and the Front Range experiencing at least abnormally dry
conditions (the precursor to official drought). A week ago 30%
of the state also had at least moderate drought and that number
is now 11%.
A ridge of high pressure is set to send moisture and hot air
toward Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe this weekend,
raising unseasonable heat across one of the largest snowpacks
in recent memory, increasing flood risks, while unstable air
churns up thunderstorms. The combination of warm and
unsettled weather will likely lead to yet another round of
snowmelt-related floods and river rises across the Sierra
Nevada. … Large portions of the snowpack are likely to
melt into a slushy mess along some of the hot spots, including
streams, rivers and lakes along the foothills of the Sierra.
This includes the Walker, West Fork and Merced rivers.
It is still too cold to swim in Northern California rivers,
officials warned Thursday. Temperatures are in the 90s in
Sacramento — but don’t give into the temptation to take a dip
in local waterways. The record Sierra snowpack is melting,
causing fast and cold currents longer than even regulars are
used to. … Water flowing out of the Nimbus Dam into the
American River is anticipated to be flowing “six times higher”
than normal for the summer months at 12,000 cubic feet per
second, the news release stated. Not only are rivers flowing
fast, the water is cold, too.
Rain is a good thing for farmers, but too much can cause
problems. Following a wet and cool winter, fruit and nut
growers throughout Northern California are seeing an increase
in disease in their orchards. Researchers with UC Davis’
Plant Pathology Department say that there is a direct
connection between the recent wetter-than-average season and
more prevalent problems with fungi and viruses.
… Hernandez Rosas said that as rain falls, it splashes
and forces fine particles on the ground to lift into the air.
Some of those particles are tiny viruses and fungi — pathogens
— that can then get blown around by the wind. If those
pathogens land on a susceptible crop, infection is possible.
The Kern River is rising fast and, so far, the public hasn’t
been given very good information on the one question on
everyone’s mind: Where’s it going to flood? Wednesday, the Kern
County Office of Emergency Services put out detailed, locally
built maps that attempt to answer that question under various
flow scenarios. The upshot is there is no current
emergency but people with property and animals in low lying
areas from Hart Park to the Manor Street area should prepare as
much as possible with sandbags and other measures and be ready
to leave if necessary, according to responder agencies.
Valley Water’s Flood Control Project is designed specifically
to prevent flooding in the Coyote Creek community. This is the
wake of the catastrophic flooding of San Jose’s Rock Springs
neighborhood in 2017. Back then, Hien Nguyen, a Rock Springs
resident, found herself trapped by the rapidly rising
floodwaters. … Nguyen says it’s taken her and her neighbors
years to recover. It’s something she hopes never to experience
again, and if Valley Water’s $115 million project works as
promised, she shouldn’t have to. … 2017, much like this
year, was an exceptionally wet winter. Anderson Reservoir
filled and then spilled over for the first time in years, and
as impressive as the images were, they spelled trouble for
communities downstream.
The historic 2023 California snowpack is melting.
Billions of gallons of icy water are running off the mountains,
causing treacherous conditions across the state’s rivers and
taking numerous lives, as some areas brace for more flooding in
the coming days. This winter saw an incredible 677
inches of snowfall in the Sierra Nevada, the second most
in California’s recorded history. And
despite repeated warnings from authorities,
several swimmers and rafters have drowned in the rushing, cold
waters. Reported deaths and disappearances in the past month
include: On April 19, a teenage boy was found dead on a
remote stretch of the South Yuba River in Nevada County.
…
Gov. Gavin Newsom is ramping up his pressure campaign against
Republicans as a slow-moving natural disaster hits a
conservative-leaning region of California. And the Democrat is
using a perennial Republican calling card — water funding — to
drive home his message. Newsom, who has grown increasingly
frustrated over the lack of federal action, is casting
Republicans as unwilling to fund critical flood protection in
the Central Valley, where record snowmelt has already submerged
farms and will continue to threaten communities into the
summer, while California steps up to front the money.
Preparing for the threat of massive flooding during
California’s “Big Melt,” federal engineers have been releasing
more Kern River water from Lake Isabella than is flowing into
the reservoir from the snowbound peaks of the southern Sierra
Nevada. The action is needed, officials say, to prevent water
from spilling over the reservoir dam and sending floodwaters
rolling into low-lying areas that include the city of
Bakersfield, farm towns, Highway 99, and portions of Kern
County’s famed oil patch — an intrusion that would risk
significant ecological harm. Now, with temperatures rising
and river flows approaching an all-time record of 7,000 cubic
feet per second, Chevron Corporation is taking steps to avoid
an oil spill at its Kern River Oil Field in the event
of catastrophic flooding.
Two men are still missing after disappearing over the weekend
in California rivers, the latest to be swept away amid warnings
about high, fast-flowing water in the Sierra foothills and the
Central Valley. • Billy Moore, 38, was last seen around 8:30
p.m. Saturday in the Tule River in the area of Springville, the
Tulare County sheriff’s office said. He had been riding down
the river on a flotation device. A segment of the Tule is
closed to recreation because of high water flows, but the
restriction ends about 5 miles upstream of Springville, which
is at the west edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills. • An
unidentified man disappeared after jumping or falling into the
North Fork of the American River near Yankee Jim’s Bridge
around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, the Placer County sheriff’s office
said.
On a rather cool spring day in late April, Amy Behrens was
strolling through the manicured grounds of Casa Romantica, a
historic San Clemente landmark known for its panoramic ocean
view, when she heard a low rumble. As she looked on in shock, a
portion of the steep sandstone cliff underlying the cultural
center crumbled toward the beach below, dragging with it
portions of Casa Romantica’s iconic ocean terrace and
resplendent walkways planted in bright coastal flora. … A
crack first discovered on the terrace April 16 had prompted a
decision to cordon off the area while the city contracted with
geotechnical engineers for a $75,000 study of soil movement on
the bluff. The landslide followed 11 days later and left the
terrace — a sought-after wedding venue — and portions of the
coastline below red-tagged.
This winter’s series of atmospheric rivers created pathogens
that are attacking crops across California. “Because of climate
change, there is more moisture in the atmosphere,” said
Professor Emeritus Dr. Michael Hoffman from Cornell Institute
for Climate Smart Solutions. Crops like some almond trees
are now covered in gumming and are being attacked by the
pathogen “phytophthora.” … Scientists told CBS13
phytophthora is usually a soil-borne disease that attacks the
roots of trees, but now the water mold is attacking the leaves,
branches and fruit itself.
So far, in 2023, seven different weather and climate-related
disasters have cost the United States at least $1 billion.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration data dating back to 1980, that is the
second-highest number of events on record for the first four
months of a year. One of those billion-dollar disasters is
the flooding caused by the many atmospheric river storms that
made landfall over California.
California’s Yosemite National Park has issued a warning of the
“extremely dangerous” effects of flooding as the Merced River
continues to rise. In a statement posted on May 15, the park
reiterated that it remains under a flood warning as the river
reaches flood stage. It is expected to stay at that level for
the next few days. A record amount of snowpack accumulated in
California over the winter months and into early March, as
storms battered the state. That snowpack is now melting as
temperatures start to rise, causing higher-than-average water
flows at the park.
In drought years, California’s depleted reservoirs are a
visible reminder of the state’s water crisis. As dry periods
drag on, its two largest reservoirs — Shasta and Oroville —
start to look more like streams than lakes. But for every
gallon of water no longer aboveground, gallons more are
disappearing, largely unnoticed, from storage that can’t be
seen from the highway. California’s underground aquifers
can hold around eight to 12 times as much water as all its
largest reservoirs combined. Yet over the past two
decades, California’s Central Valley — the epicenter of the
state’s agriculture industry — has been pumping groundwater at
an accelerated rate. During the 2011-2017 drought alone,
Central Valley aquifers lost more water than it takes to fill
Lake Mead all the way to the top.
Hundreds of industrial sites along California’s coastline may
face a heightened risk of coastal flooding by 2050 because of
sea level rise from human-caused global warming, a recent study
says. Why it matters: Flood and storm surge events amplified by
sea level rise against such facilities could increase the
chances of hazardous chemicals escaping from the sites and
contaminating nearby communities. The potential release of
contaminants from future extreme weather events may also have
an increased effect on people of color and low-income
communities.
The wave of atmospheric rivers that swept across the state this
winter has created the right conditions for plant pathogens
that haven’t been seen for decades in California. University of
California, Davis, plant pathologist Florent “Flo” Trouillas is
getting more calls from growers and farm advisors concerned
about potential crop damage. … Trouillas is like a disease
detective. He splits his time between the field and the lab,
working to diagnose pathogens, diseases and other ailments that
strike fruit and nut crops such as almonds, cherries, olives
and pistachios.
With record-breaking storms wreaking havoc throughout the
state, even rabbits need rescuing. For months, a team from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has navigated the Central Valley
looking to rescue from rising floodwaters stranded riparian
brush rabbits, a small, brown and white creature listed as an
endangered species. Using canoes and motorboats, the five team
members have trekked out in rivers from sunrise to past sundown
in the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge to rescue
rabbits. Some are stranded on high ground, on bush branches or
trees. They are then taken to higher ground as the river water
level floods the region.
Coming out of the state’s driest three-year period ever
recorded, the new year launched a series of atmospheric rivers
that pummeled California’s lowlands with rain, hail and violent
winds, and packed the Sierra Nevada with near-record depths of
snow. … Sacramento has been dealing with floods since
the very beginning. The city has been identified by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers as the greatest flood disaster risk in
the U.S., with New Orleans coming in second, according to
Johnson. The worst flood events in the Central Valley are
usually caused by a series of cold storms that build a massive
snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which is then melted by a warmer
storm system. The right conditions can cause hundreds of
thousands of cubic feet per second of snowmelt to rush down the
American River, reaching Sacramento within 24 hours.
Bay Area biologists remain uncertain about the status of the
region’s endangered and threatened salmon species after
challenges posed by the recent onslaught of winter rainstorms
inhibited their research and may have prevented some of the
fish from successfully breeding and laying eggs. Marin
Municipal Water District ecologist Eric
Ettlinger told the Marin Independent Journal the
historic storms have not only prevented surveyors from
monitoring the numbers of coho and Chinook salmon for several
weeks but also apparently damaged a number of their spawning
beds, which are referred to as redds, in Marin County, home to
the largest population of coho salmon from Monterey Bay to the
Noyo River in Mendocino County.
in October of 2021, Ela Dam became more than a benign fishing
hole for Owle and other Cherokee members. While working on a
malfunctioning mechanism of the floodgate, dam operators
accidentally unleashed a wave of sediment downstream. According
to state officials, the event buried important aquatic habitat
for the Sicklefin Redhorse and several other sensitive species
under 18 to 24 inches of silt and sand. The dam’s owner hired a
contractor to remove the sediment, but federal scientists fear
the incident could have caused those species irreparable,
long-term harm. … The United States is home to more than
90,000 dams that serve a variety of purposes, including to
prevent flooding, expand development, provide water for
irrigation or generate electricity—like Ela.
For 170 years, the gold deposits along Sierra streambeds have
been so poked and prodded that easy supplies of the precious
metal have grown scarce and are a challenge to find. This
spring’s raging rivers are regifting them. … [G]litter
suddenly illuminated the inky black sand. A half bucket of
material yielded 12 showy specks — nearly a tenth of a gram of
gold, worth about $7 — about double the typical haul in
previous years. Prospectors call it “flood gold” — fine-sized
flakes carried by alluvial waters and then deposited as flow
recedes.
For climate advocates, the growing state deficit unveiled in
the revised 2023-24 state budget offers some bad news, some
good news and a great deal of uncertainty. The bad news in the
budget presented Friday morning by Gov. Gavin Newsom is that,
despite lobbying efforts and environmentalists pitching at
least two alternative proposals, the $6 billion in cuts to
climate spending that Newsom proposed in January are still
included. If those multi-year cuts stand it will mean
significant hits to funding that previously was pledged to help
speed California’s transition to non-polluting cars, clean up
the water supply, decarbonize buildings and protect residents
against the increasingly dire effects of extreme heat.
… The storms also prompted Newsom in this revised budget
to allocate $290 million to pay for flood prevention programs
needed as record snowpack melts in the summer.
For the first time in 17 years, the Kern River “intertie” will
be opened on Monday to release Kern River flood waters into the
California Aqueduct, according to the Kern River Watermaster.
The move is an attempt to keep more flood water off the already
waterlogged Tulare Lake bed as officials anticipate
significantly increased Kern River flows starting in
mid-June. River flows are expected to increase shortly to
7,500 cfs and could potentially go above 9,000 cfs in mid-June,
according to Department of Water Resources estimates. Lake
Isabella is anticipated to fill beyond its maximum capacity,
to 658,262, sometime in mid-June forcing outflows up to
9,234 cfs, according to a May 8 DWR estimate provided by Kern
County Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop.
Flying thousands of feet above the Sierra Nevada in a plane
equipped with specialized imaging devices, Elizabeth Carey has
been scanning the mountains with lasers to precisely map the
snow. The snow blanketing the Sierra lies so deep that the
mountain range looks surprisingly swollen and “puffy,” said
Carey, who leads the flights as part of a state-funded program.
… By mapping the snowpack with laser pulses and
spectrometers, Carey and her colleagues are able to provide a
detailed picture of one of the biggest snow accumulations ever
recorded in the state. The flights are also collecting data to
estimate when and how fast the snow will melt, helping
California officials prepare for the runoff, manage water
releases from dams, and assess which areas are most at risk of
flooding.
Four months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom yanked $40 million in
funding to restore San Joaquin Valley floodplains from his
proposed budget, angering legislators from both parties and
conservationists. Today, he gave all of the money back as part
of a $290-million package to increase flood protection funding
statewide. The funding comes in addition to $202 million
already included in Newsom’s 2023-24 budget proposal in
January. That makes a total of $452 million in investments that
Newsom is proposing to protect Californians from flooding in
the wake of winter storms that inundated towns in the San
Joaquin Valley and the Central Coast.
El Niño conditions — the warming of ocean waters off South
America that can alter weather across the globe, including
California’s summer temperatures and the amount of rain it
might receive next winter — are emerging in the Pacific Ocean
for the first time in 4 years. While El Niños do not
automatically guarantee wet weather for California,
historically, the stronger they are, the more likely it is that
the state will have a rainy winter season. And after the
dramatic series of storms this past winter that ended the
drought and filled nearly empty reservoirs, another one
back-to-back could increase flood risks.
Last March, California’s barrage of atmospheric river storms
overwhelmed the area, flooding pistachio orchards and swamping
communities, and Allensworth found itself all but surrounded by
a shallow sea. Residents were told to evacuate. They were also
told that this flood is just the beginning. California is
fighting a slow-motion disaster, one that could become its
largest flood in recent history. … Part of Allensworth’s
problem stems from the politics of water: For over a hundred
years, water in the Tulare Lake basin has been controlled and
hoarded by a handful of powerful landowners, usually at the
expense of everyone else. The basin’s water management system
still favors those landowners, leaving Allensworth with little
recourse when floodwaters approach.
California’s Central Valley produces a quarter of the nation’s
food, but a parade of atmospheric rivers this winter caused
severe storms that destroyed thousands of acres of crops. The
storms, which have been linked to climate change, swamped
150,000 acres in the region, according to numbers from Kings
County officials. About 99% of the nation’s pistachio supply is
grown in Central California, per data from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Pistachio farmer Nader Malakan estimates that
about 1,200 acres of pistachio crops were destroyed, to the
tune of $15 million.
With just a few weeks until the unofficial start of summer,
weather officials say more than half of Utah’s epic snowpack
remains unmelted. In the newest Utah Weather Outlook
released Thursday, the National Weather Service shared the
latest information on snowmelt and the state’s drought status.
Utah set a record for the state’s largest ever snowpack in
March with 26.1 inches of snow water equivalent. The state
experienced one if its most snow-filled winters in history,
eliminating practically every section of drought across Utah.
Temperatures are expected to rise this Mother’s Day weekend,
and Sonoma County officials are urging caution as they expect
swells along the Sonoma Coast. They say along the Russian
River, water flows are now faster than what we usually see in
the summer due to our recent wet weather. Pure beauty in
Guerneville but don’t be fooled this weekend – the Russian
River is flowing. “Way faster current and a lot more water,”
said Andrew Liput with Johnson’s Beach Rentals. The river’s
flow rate at the Hacienda Bridge is 450% higher than just a
year ago, according to the county.
With 2023 emerging as a wet year in the Sacramento Valley,
water resources managers and Groundwater Sustainability
Agencies (GSAs) are watching groundwater levels and quality to
see how the aquifer systems will recover on the heels of some
very dry years where there has been little surface water
available in certain parts of the Valley. One indicator of
trends in the aquifer systems is the spring groundwater levels
that have been monitored and reported on the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) California’s Groundwater Live. There
is a lot to learn from the various trends seen on this website
that will help inform local water and land use management.
Researchers from UC Berkeley, UCLA and Climate Central, in
collaboration with the Toxic Tides Project, published a study
that discovered rising sea levels along California’s coast are
placing marginalized communities at risk of flooding by
contaminated water. Rachel Morello-Frosch, senior author of the
study and campus public health professor noted that larger
renter populations, who are predominantly made up of people of
color and experience higher levels of poverty, are more likely
to be susceptible to environmental pollutants that come with
rising sea levels due to geographic proximity to hazardous
sites. When flooding occurs, these areas are the first to be
impacted, according to the study.
California’s recent drought flared into the state’s driest
three-year period on record before its abrupt end this spring,
and few people saw it coming. Research published Wednesday
suggests that the drought and the climatic conditions behind it
had an unlikely driver: the Australian bushfires of 2019 and
2020. According to the groundbreaking study,
the massive wildfires thousands of miles away
unleashed so much smoke that they triggered a chain of events
in the atmosphere, ultimately cooling the tropical Pacific
Ocean and hastening formation of a La Niña climate pattern. La
Niña, which stuck around for an unusual three winters, is
associated with droughts throughout much of California.
Flooding is the costliest type of natural disaster in the U.S.,
responsible for about 90% of the damage from natural disasters
each year. It happens almost every day somewhere in the
country. Yet, much of the aging infrastructure meant to protect
U.S. communities is in bad shape and, in some cases, failing.
… The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the
most significant U.S. infrastructure law in recent years,
includes $55 billion in new spending for water
infrastructure – money that is making its way to
communities. But that’s barely an eighth of what the American
Society of Civil Engineers estimates is needed for drinking
water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure
improvements.
Even while the recent heatwave is over and warming temperatures
are ahead, the central Sierra snowpack remains at nearly 300%
of normal, with much of the Truckee River watershed at 200%.
The heatwave brought regional-wide record temperatures which
accelerated melting of the snowpack, raising the river and
enacting a flood watch. This also had officials warning the
public to avoid swimming in the river as it is running cold and
fast. With more snowpack melting soon, we wanted to take
a chance to see what rising water across the Truckee River
looks like, and see what those images can tell us about the
river’s health, ecology and development.
There is always something growing inside the gated courtyard
of the L.A. Catholic Worker Hospitality Kitchen, the Skid
Row food distribution center better known as the “Hippie
Kitchen.” … Magenta explosions of bougainvillea frothed
over the kitchen’s gates and the cinder-block walls of the
vacant lot next door. The Indian coral tree’s fire-colored
blossoms popped against green leaves. There was even a calla
lily blooming from a patch of dirt everyone at the kitchen
thought had gone barren. … Those 31 atmospheric
rivers delivered steady, nourishing rainfall from October
to March. Regional temperatures remained moderate as
well, without any sudden early-spring heat waves to kill off
fragile baby plants.
Thanks to a wet winter and spring, California rice country is
humming with activity again, with planes dropping seed on
flooded fields and equipment working the ground as planting
ramps up in the Sacramento Valley. It’s a scene that Colusa
County grower Bruce Rolen says he views with elation,
considering he planted not one grain of rice a year ago. At the
height of the state’s multiyear drought, reduced water
deliveries to farms last season left “fallow fields that were
just growing tumbleweeds and thistle plants,” he said.
Plentiful rainfall, an enormous snowpack and brimming
reservoirs have changed all that, with farmers “just tickled”
that they will have enough water to plant their full acreage.
As sea level rise threatens to inundate hundreds of homes, cut
off roads and swallow the sands of Stinson Beach, Marin
planners and town residents are preparing a new defense plan in
an effort to save the popular coastal destination. Bordered by
both the Pacific Ocean and Bolinas Lagoon, the town of about
500 residents is in the vanguard of Marin communities most
vulnerable to rising ocean waters. Residents such as Jeff
Loomans, who has owned a home in the town for 13 years, said
the future their community faces is driven home by recent
incidents such as the January winter storms that battered
homes, broke pilings, flooded roads and washed away tons of
sand.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is implementing an
emergency program to divert high river flows away from
flood-prone Central Valley communities and into groundwater
recharge basins. DWR is working with local agencies and
equipment vendors to provide funding and secure much-needed
temporary diversion equipment, including pumps and siphons, and
will support their deployment by local agencies. The first
set of temporary pumps and siphons were deployed by Fresno
Irrigation District on April 25, as seen in this video.
The district is reducing downstream flood impacts in the Tulare
Lake Region and expanding groundwater recharge efforts by
diverting water from Kings River reaches to existing recharge
facilities or working agricultural lands.
California’s “big melt” is underway, and if forecasts bear out,
much of the water being held in mountain snow will flow
downhill in May and June. But at the moment, the state’s
snowpack remains huge — about three times its normal size for
this time of year — and depending on coming conditions, the
snow can either dissipate slowly or quickly cause trouble.
Snowmelt often accelerates in May with warmer weather, longer
days and a higher sun angle. … Although it started out at a
higher point, California’s snowpack is already melting faster
than it did in 1983, a year of historic flooding in the San
Joaquin Valley, thanks to a dry April and a heat wave late in
the month. … With the weather driving how quickly snow
will melt, here are four scenarios that could determine flood
severity this spring and summer.
A year ago, Kirk Gilkey was taking stock of his newly planted
cotton, watching green shoots poke through freshly tilled dirt.
These days, he has a view of nothing but water. Nearly
two-thirds of the Gilkey family’s 8,700 acres in the southern
San Joaquin Valley has been engulfed by Tulare Lake,
the long-dormant body of freshwater that has re-emerged with
the wet winter and grown to half the size of Lake Tahoe.
… The area, between Fresno and Bakersfield, is one of
California’s agricultural hubs hit hardest by this year’s
historic flooding. While the toll on the state’s farming
industry is still being tallied, crop losses are expected to
soar to potentially billions of dollars, on top of billions
more in property damage. It’s a modest but noticeable dent in
California’s roughly $50 billion of total farm production
annually and acute for the affected regions and their mainstay
crops.
With a thick blanket of snow still covering the mountains and
warm temperatures (hopefully) on their way, water managers are
planning for epic runoff and high volumes of water in
downstream areas. No flooding is expected on the Truckee River
this spring. Historical records show the river doesn’t stand
much threat of flooding after mid-February, which is good news
for Reno residents. But with all-time snowpack records across
the region, expect to see extremely high water levels in area
waterways well into June, as well as extremely full reservoirs.
Over the winter, the Carson and Walker basins broke snowpack
records dating back to 1981.
For approximately a hundred years, our civilization has
developed approaches to speed water away. Increasingly frequent
and severe floods and droughts lead to higher levees, bigger
drains, and longer aqueducts. We are beginning to learn,
however, that increasing concrete infrastructure to control
water is exacerbating the problem. Erica Gies’s new book, Water
Always Wins, focuses on the slow movement of water, essentially
nature’s way, to absorb floods, store water for droughts, and
feed natural systems. California is adopting policies and laws
to slow water movement in two ways in order to recharge our
underground basins. The first approach directs swollen
rivers during periods of heavy precipitation into orchards and
fields with permeable soils to slowly seep into aquifers. -Written by Dennis Allen, chair of Allen
Construction, an employee-owned company committed to building
and operating sustainably.
Northern California’s wet winter left plenty of places for
mosquitoes to breed and hatch in late April and May, according
to public health and agricultural experts. That means North
State residents will likely be smacking more of them than
during the past three springs and summers. But with a bit of
cleaning up and a few lifestyle changes, people can make it
harder for mosquitoes to bite them or inhabit their yard. Three
years of drought left the insects fewer wet places to breed
last spring. That changed this year, with the heavy rain and
snowmelt that filled waterways, according to the Shasta
Mosquito and Vector Control District.
The rivers in Southern California are an enigma, and by some
observer’s standards, their meager, seasonal flows wouldn’t
even qualify as a “real river.” But few places in the world
have captured, managed, channeled, and fought over their water
resources with more necessity and ingenuity than the cities of
Southern California. Southern California rivers are unique for
several reasons; they are short by normal standards, their
flows are comparatively low, their origins can reach lofty
alpine elevations over 9,000 feet, and the area they collect
their water from, or “watershed,” is small in comparison to
other major rivers. As an example, the Sacramento River in
Northern California is four times longer and has a watershed 10
times larger than the Santa Ana River, which is the largest
river in Southern California. -Written by freelance writer Mark Landis.
Ketchup, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup and salsa, all staples in
the American kitchen, may be in short supply with higher prices
this summer after record rainfall saturated California’s tomato
fields. With soil still too wet for planting, farmers postponed
the season’s start by three weeks, which could translate into a
shortage of tomato-based items this summer, according to
individual farmers and the California Tomato Growers
Association. The most dire predictions come from farmers
themselves, who say some of them could be forced out of the
tomato-growing business.
Nearly four months after the waters washed through Planada,
most of Samuel Gomez’s one-bedroom house has been stripped back
to the studs. He was still sleeping in a small room at the back
of the house – the only one that hadn’t been completely
wrecked. … In early January, the small Central Valley
community of Planada was one of the first towns engulfed by a
wave of back-to-back storms that hit California this winter.
Amid relentless rains, a creek that runs past the town broke
through an ageing levee. Flood waters swamped the town and
surrounding agricultural fields. … Months later,
residents are still digging themselves out. And local leaders
are pleading for more help, without which the unincorporated,
rural community of 4,000 might never fully recover.
The floods driven by winter storms are nothing new in Monterey
County, but the early March catastrophe that swelled the Pajaro
and Salinas rivers and drowned farmworker communities exposed
the extreme inequality built into flood-control
systems. The immediate cause of the flood were
the winter storms that struck the California coast, but
the disaster that breached levees in towns like Pajaro was
decades in the making. It was based on two decades of official
neglect shaped by federally mandated cost-benefit analyses
and the lack of community engagement that might have challenged
their conclusions. For years, particularly after the major
floods, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considered bolstering
the Pajaro River levee, which was originally built in 1949.
CORCORAN, Calif. — The waters from a long-dry lake, resurrected
by epic rains earlier this year, already lap at the levee of
this Central Valley town of 22,000 people. A hundred square
miles of crops are drowning around it. But the flood that
Corcoran City Manager Greg Gatzka is really worried about has
yet to come.
Snow, torrential rains, massive floods. Extreme weather has
battered the U.S. this year and shoppers will likely feel the
lingering effects at the grocers heading into summer.
Good weather, especially in the spring when planting season
starts, is vital to growing a bountiful crop of fruits, nuts
and vegetables. However, the extreme swings this year have
left many growers behind schedule, especially in California,
which produces nearly half of U.S. fruits, nuts and “salad
bowl” vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes, spinach and kale,
according to the California Department of Food and
Agriculture. Although farmers are optimistic they can
recover from delayed planting timelines, it may take a few
months. Meantime, consumers may see smaller selections, lower
supplies and higher prices in the near term, experts say.
Flood waters cause concern for many of us, but they’re doing
good things for birds right now in Box Elder County. The Bear
River Migratory Bird refuge is already seeing habitat come back
in areas where drought dried it out. News Specialist Mike
Anderson is live out there on what this means for the coming
months. For the two-hundred some species that come through
here, it’s mostly good news. Some of their nests can get washed
out, but they’re resilient and can move on. For those managing
this place it’s more complicated. It is peak birding season
right now in Northern Utah, drawing all kinds of people to the
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, like Dale Dean, from
California.
Triple Threat. Deadman’s Drop. Satan’s Cesspool. After years of
drought, the rapids along California’s American River are truly
living up to their names. As a historic snowpack starts to
melt, the spring runoff is fueling conditions for some of the
best whitewater in years on the American River and its forks,
which course through the Sierra Nevada northeast of
Sacramento.
California State Parks announced April 24 the start of
pre-construction design and engineering for the Malibu Creek
Ecosystem Restoration Project at Malibu Creek State Park in the
Santa Monica Mountains. At the heart of the project is the
dismantling of Rindge Dam along Malibu Creek and the removal of
approximately 780,000 cubic yards of sediment behind the
massive concrete structure. Eight upstream barriers along Las
Virgenes and Cold creeks within the Malibu Creek Watershed will
be modified or removed, officials said. Cal Parks and
partners from McMillen LLC and Stillwater Sciences, two
aquatics engineering companies, will team up with the
California Trout nonprofit group to conduct baseline biological
surveys, hydrology modeling and flood risk assessment as
experts narrow down the scope of the project.
Tidal flooding is not currently a regular issue for the
California coast, but scientists say it could be by the end of
this century. A new “Flooding Analysis Tool” produced by
scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows that in
the coming decades, the number of days with tidal flooding will
likely increase for all locations mapped around the United
States. That increase in high tide flooding is directly
linked to global sea level rise, spurred on by climate
change. “There are things that cause sea level to rise and
we know those things quite well,” said Dr. Ben Hamlington, who
is one of the research scientists contributing to the flooding
analysis tool at JPL. “On global scales we know that melting
ice contributes to rising sea levels” Hamlington says the
challenge is communicating how local factors will affect the
severity of the impacts of sea level rise.
Encouraging news continues to flow about water levels at Lake
Mead. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has announced that
increased releases from Lake Powell will continue through the
end of May. Water released through the Glen Canyon Dam at
Lake Powell flows south as the Colorado River into the Grand
Canyon and eventually into Lake Mead. The majority of the water
in the Colorado River basin comes from melting snow in the
Colorado Rockies, which had record snowfall this
year. Reclamation says it will release almost twice as
much water this month than it did prior to the recent high flow
experiment (HFE) that helped Lake Mead rise more than two feet
in a week.
Twelve months ago, California was entering year three of an
extended drought. On the heels of the driest January-April
period in 128 years, the state’s two largest reservoirs were
down to critically low levels and a skimpy snowpack meant
little additional water was on the way. … This year has
been a complete turnaround. Storms drenched
California for months and piled on epic amounts
of snow in the Sierra Nevada. The state’s May 1 snowpack
clocked in at 254% of average for the date.
California regularly sees variability in Sierra snow from
season to season, or a “snowpack whiplash.” … Satellite
images show how much California’s snowpack, in white, varied
from 2000 to 2023.
In a rhythm that’s pulsed through epochs, a river’s plume
carries sediment and nutrients from the continental interior
into the ocean, a major exchange of resources from land to sea.
More than 6,000 rivers worldwide surge freshwater into oceans,
delivering nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, that
feed phytoplankton, generating a bloom of life that in turn
feeds progressively larger creatures. They may even influence
ocean currents in ways researchers are just starting to
understand. … Many of the harms caused by dams are
well-documented. They block fish passage and starve subsistence
fishers; radically alter natural river regimes and aquatic
creatures’ lifecycles; and flood forests, wetlands, villages,
and historical sites. … Now scientists are describing another
impact that has received relatively little attention but
appears to also be profound: Dams block sediment-carrying river
pulses into the ocean.
Forecasters from the World Meteorological Organization are
reporting increased chances that the global climate pattern
known as El Niño will arrive by the end of summer. With it
comes increased chances for hotter-than-normal temperatures in
2024. While there is not yet a clear picture of how strong the
El Niño event will be or how long it might last, even a
relatively mild one could affect precipitation and temperature
patterns around the world. … El Niño is associated with
warmer-than-normal ocean surface temperatures in the central
and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. In the United States, it
tends to lead to rainier, cooler conditions in much of the
South, and warmer conditions in parts of the North.
A week before Easter celebrations, San Luis Obispo Mission
Plaza buzzed with excitement about a very different animal with
big whiskers and two buck teeth. More than 1,000 visitors came
out on April 1 to celebrate the first-ever SLO Beaver Festival,
an event hosted by the SLO Beaver Brigade to raise awareness
about the river rodent and all it does to help the environment.
… Families moseyed through the plaza all day to get
their faces painted, build their own dams using sticks and
clay, and hear musicians, scientists, and activists sing the
beaver’s praises. … The beaver movement is in full swing
in SLO County. Even before the successful festival, the SLO
Beaver Brigade has been scoring victories that are a testament
to the momentum it’s built since forming in 2019.
Pilot Gary Kraft has flown over the Great Salt Lake at 15,000
feet, but this week was a different experience. At an altitude
of 1,500 feet, Kraft and his guests were treated to a closer
look at the many facets of the largest saline lake in the
Western Hemisphere and the eighth largest in the world. This
article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative,
a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education
and media organizations to help inform people about the plight
of the Great Salt Lake — and what can be done to make a
difference before it is too late. … On Wednesday, the lake
was a kaleidoscope of colors. Bright red in the north arm,
patches of barren-looking playas, a brilliant blue bouncing off
the clear sky and shimmering white squares denoting evaporation
ponds. From the air, you could see the causeway berm that
separates the saline-filled north arm from the south arm.
Tulare Lake has sprung back to life, its shoreline rapidly
expanding from the runoff of a winter of epic rainstorms and
the melting of the massive southern Sierra snowpack. The lake,
which has been mostly dry for decades, now covers miles of rich
farmland and is threatening to overwhelm nearby communities.
… Tulare Lake is back to claim roads, orchards, farms,
and anything left behind on that land. It is a disaster
unfolding in slow motion, threatening everything around it,
including the city of Corcoran. The lake has wrapped
itself around the southern and western sides of Corcoran, so
the community is now completely dependent on the levees
designed to box in and protect this pocket of land. It probably
will be for some time to come. Corcoran is the largest single
community threatened by the reborn lake, and that includes the
8,000 inmates in the city’s state prison facilities.
Even after a record-setting winter of heavy rainfall that
filled local reservoirs, the City of Santa Maria is still
encouraging everyone in the community to continue water
conservation efforts. On Tuesday night at the Santa Maria City
Council meeting, Mayor Alice Patino officially proclaimed May
as Water Awareness Month. … Water Awareness Month is an
annual observation throughout California that was created to
help educate residents about the efficient use of water
resources. This year, unlike in the recent previous years
when the state was gripped by continued dry weather, Water
Awareness Month comes following heavy rainfall throughout the
past winter.
An atmospheric traffic jam is bringing a taste of
winter to both the eastern and western United States during the
first days of May…AccuWeather meteorologists say a cold,
slow-moving storm…may leave California residents in a state
of bewilderment. Weather along the West Coast will remain
active this week as a storm brings rain showers along with
mountain snow…The chilly, damp weather will sweep southward
with the storm into Thursday, bringing unusual May rain to
places such as Fresno, Los Angeles and San
Diego.
Garrett Binder showed up for opening day of the rafting season
relieved his companion was a black Labrador retriever, a breed
long known to innately thrive in the water. … Coming out of a
record winter with water runoff that caused flooding over much
of California, the Russian River, like many waterways in the
state, was transformed into a fast and wide torrent — prompting
concern from North Bay agencies tasked with river safety. In
April, the Russian River — a favorite floating go-to for the
masses — ran at a rate of 1,800 cubic feet per second. To put
the flow into perspective, imagine Golden State Warriors Point
Guard Steph Curry passing 1,800 basketballs to a certain point
all at once.
At hundreds to thousands of years old, California’s iconic
redwoods — the tallest trees in the world — have truly stood
the test of time. But all of our atmospheric river storms have
left them with a case of weather whiplash in this age of
climate change. Todd Dawson is one of the only researchers in
the world to explore an ecosystem few of us have ever seen up
close before; he and his team are expert tree climbers,
conducting research at the tops of the redwoods more than 200
feet high. … Dawson, a professor of integrative biology
and environmental science policy & management at UC Berkeley,
said the weather extremes are taking a toll on California’s
official state trees. Dawson said coast redwoods and giant
sequoias are now dealing with weather whiplash.
Although it’s well into spring, the snowpack in California’s
mountains remains huge, measuring 254% of average in the
state’s May 1 snow survey on Monday. The Sierra Nevada and
southern Cascades together have seen near-record accumulation
this year, with the snowpack peaking on April 8 and then
beginning to decline, state records show, losing just under 20%
of its water mass since. A cold start to April and lots of
cloud cover prompted the snow to melt at slower-than-average
pace, state officials say, leaving the snowpack in May
among the largest in modern times for the month. This amount of
snow presents the potential for catastrophic flooding as it
melts through the rest of spring and into summer. Already, many
areas of the state are on high alert, notably the southern San
Joaquin Valley.
Meteorologists in California were talking about baking
temperatures melting the massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada
only a few days ago. This week, they are focused on
plummeting temperatures bringing snow to those same
mountains. Welcome to spring in the Golden State. It’s the
season when significant temperature swings are not
uncommon. The shift in the weather was triggered by a
trough of low pressure from the Gulf of Alaska pushing into
California and pulling in cold air and unsettled weather, the
National Weather Service said. … On Friday, downtown
Sacramento hit a high of 88 degrees; at 2 p.m. on Monday,
the city had hit 57 degrees — that’s a 31-degree temperature
difference.
California water experts and environmental justice advocates
are calling for state leaders to mandate that new levees be
built with double the federal required protection to withstand
the increasingly severe storms caused, in part, by human-caused
climate change. California’s levee protection regulations are
not uniform; the state’s seemingly endless dikes and causeways
are overseen by a patchwork of widely varying rules. Some
communities like Pajaro in Monterey County, which was swamped
by floodwaters this year, are protected only against smaller
storms that happen every eight years, while levees protecting
urban areas of the Central Valley are bolstered against much
more powerful storms.
One of California’s driest and warmest three-year periods on
record just ended in an epic wet season. As snow melts and
water demand skyrockets, it’s a good time to take stock. Did we
sock away some water for the next dry period? Where are we most
vulnerable to flooding, and what might we do better? “We
are having an extreme year, and it is embedded within a series
of extreme years,” said PPIC Water Policy Center senior fellow
Jeffrey Mount at an event last week. “I want everyone to remind
themselves where we were a year ago. Last year at this time we
were pretty freaked out about storage,” he said, referring to
the low reservoirs and meager snowpack, which supplies about
30% of the state’s water.
Hundreds of hazardous industrial sites that dot the California
coastline – including oil and gas refineries and
sewage-treatment plants – are at risk of severe flooding from
rising sea level if the climate crisis worsens, new research
shows. If planet-warming pollution continues to rise unabated,
129 industrial sites are estimated to be at risk of coastal
flooding by 2050 according to the study, published Tuesday in
the journal Environmental Science & Technology by researchers
from University of California at Los Angeles and Berkeley, as
well as Climate Central. Researchers also found that residents
living within a kilometer — about 0.6 miles — of these
contaminated sites tend to be more vulnerable: people of color,
the elderly, unemployed and low-income communities.
Flooding and avalanche risks continue to impact parts of Utah
on Monday after an active weekend, as record-high temperatures
are causing major chunks of the state’s record snowpack to melt
rapidly. Both directions of U.S. 89 are closed between U.S. 6
and Fairview because of flooding on the roadway in the area,
according to the Utah Department of Transportation. The
National Weather Service had issued a flood advisory for
Thistle Creek near the U.S. 6 junction in Utah County on Monday
morning, noting that snowmelt will likely cause hydrologic
flooding, possibly making roadways impassable.
Earth is under an “El Niño watch” as scientists eye signs that
the climate pattern is developing. Its arrival could mean
significant impacts worldwide, including a push toward levels
of global warming that climate scientists have warned could be
devastating. Since March, a rapid increase in average ocean
temperatures has been helping to fuel speculation that El Niño
is imminent. The pattern could mark a quick departure from an
unusually extended spell of El Niño’s inverse counterpart, La
Niña, which scientists say ended in February. … Some of
the most severe El Niños have delivered heavy rainfall and
mudslides to Southern California, for example. Impacts can vary
depending on the strength of an El Niño, however. Larger
temperature and wind anomalies mean a stronger El Niño.
Even as the spring heat wave that’s thawed California’s record
Sierra Nevada snowpack comes to a close, communities across the
Central Valley and the state’s northeastern mountains are
continuing to prepare for potentially dangerous flooding.
Already, near-overflowing rivers triggered the closure of much
of Yosemite National Park on Friday. The Yosemite Valley, home
to many of the famous cliffs and waterfalls in the park, was
expected to reopen for day-use only on Sunday morning before a
full opening Monday morning, when a flood warning for the area
was set to expire. Indefinite flood warnings were also in
effect for areas near rushing rivers in parts of Fresno, Kings
and Tulare counties, where some 60,000 acres of farmland are
under about 3 feet of water brought by last month’s powerful
atmospheric river storms.
Record rains this winter may have dampened Northern California,
but wildfire season is still coming — and certain regions will
see it sooner than others. Temperatures in the region are
warming up, teetering in the high 80s and low 90s in
Sacramento, slowly drying up land drenched in early 2023
storms. According to the state’s Department of Water
Resources, California is experiencing one of the largest
snowpacks in history … Ken Pimlott, retired chief of the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said
because of the snowpack, the onset of this season could be
delayed a number of months compared to the last several years.
It may seem like a no-brainer to enthusiastically allow the
Kern Water Bank Authority to take up to 300,000 acre feet of
flood water off the Kern River and store it underground as
water managers scramble to find homes for this year’s epic
runoff. But, alas, nothing is simple with water. The water
bank’s April 13 application for a temporary permit
from the state Water Resources Control Board raised eyebrows
almost as soon as it was filed. The 32-square mile water
bank, which has 7,000 acres of recharge ponds, is currently
taking 1,500 cubic feet per second of river water. But that
water is being purchased by the bank’s participants, mostly
from the Kern County Water Agency (see sidebar).
The whiplash change from extreme drought to epic snowpack is
having very different consequences for a variety of
species …Ryan Burnett, head of the nonprofit Point Blue
Conservation Science’s Sierra Nevada group, agrees. “It’s a
complicated situation for both wildlife and wildlife managers.
For example, protected migratory birds will continue moving
north along the Pacific Flyway because they didn’t get the memo
that there was 30 feet of snow on their rest stops in the
Sierras,” he said. “But birds endemic to the American West that
nest close to the ground at high elevations, such as
white-crowned sparrows, just don’t breed in heavy snow years
like this one.”
More than a month after heavy storms eroded a section of the
Los Angeles Aqueduct, work crews are still scrambling to
complete repairs and shore up flood defenses in the face of a
weeklong heat wave that threatens to trigger widespread
snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada…Historic snowpack levels in the
Eastern Sierra are expected to melt into runoff that is 225% of
normal, which translates to about 326 billion gallons of water
that will need to be managed, DWP officials said. And while a
typical runoff season in the region can last from May to June,
this year’s “could push through to August,” said Anselmo
Collins, senior assistant general manager of the DWP’s water
system.
As the gargantuan Sierra snowpack gets heated up by warmer
temperatures this week, many of the Golden State’s major
waterways are expected to see a surge in flow from the melting
snow — though major floods still seem a ways off for now. The
only rivers forecast to exceed flood stage in the next four
days are the Merced River near Yosemite Valley, which will
close down parts of the national park, and the West Fork Carson
River in Alpine County.
The heavy snow melt has triggered more water releases from Lake
Oroville this week. The first release through the Spillway in
four years happened in March with 15,000 cubic feet per second
(cfs) were released. The California Department of Water
Resources upped this amount this week. On Wednesday, 18,000 cfs
were released — and 20,000 cfs on Thursday…. As of Thursday,
Lake Oroville was at 91% capacity….The DWR said despite the
increase, the Sacramento River will remain at its normal
conditions, so there is no concern for flooding.
A recent study outlines how an atmospheric river ranking system
could be implemented on a global scale to better understand the
impacts on different regions…In 2019,
researchers published a paper introducing a method of
ranking the intensity of atmospheric rivers in the United
States on a scale of one to five based on the total amount of
water transported over the event. This would put atmospheric
rivers on a similar, albeit much less severe, ranking scale as
tornadoes and hurricanes.
Massive flooding in California’s central valley that has
wreaked havoc and resurrected the long-dormant Tulare Lake has
lawmakers contemplating multi-billion-dollar bond measures to
stem further damage. Assembly Bill 305 — introduced by
Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua, D-Stockton —would place a
$4.5 billion flood protection bond measure on the Nov. 5, 2024,
ballot, while Senate Bill 638 —authored by Sen. Susan
Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, and Sen. Roger Niello — R-Fair
Oaks, would ask voters to approve $6 billion of bonds to fund
climate resiliency and flood protection.
Californians could be voting on a major flood protection bond
next November. State lawmakers are pushing a $4.5 billion bond
measure which would help fund water infrastructure projects
across the state. The bill’s author, San Joaquin Valley
Democratic Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua, said the language
is not yet set in stone, but that funds from the bond would go
to the Department of Water Resources (DWR). According to the
bill, $1 billion would be allocated to “multibenefit flood
protection projects” under the Central Valley Flood Protection
Board as well as other projects in the San Joaquin Valley.
Satellite images taken over the past several weeks show a
dramatic resurrection of Tulare Lake in California’s
Central Valley and the flooding that could remain for as long
as two years across previously arid farmland. The satellite
imagery, provided by the Earth imaging company Planet
Labs, show the transition from a dry basin to a wide and deep
lake running about ten miles from bank to bank on land used to
grow almonds, tomatoes, cotton and other crops. Scientists warn
the flooding will worsen as historically huge snowpack from the
Sierra Nevada melts and sends more water into the basin. This
week, a heat wave could prompt widespread snow melt in the
mountains and threaten the small farming communities already
dealing with the resurrected Tulare Lake.
Rainfall in southern California is highly variable, with some
fluctuations explainable by climate patterns. Resulting runoff
and heightened streamflow from rain events introduces
freshwater plumes into the coastal ocean. Here we use a
105-year daily sea surface salinity record collected at Scripps
Pier in La Jolla, California to show that El Niño Southern
Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation both have
signatures in coastal sea surface salinity. … This
analysis emphasizes the strong influence that precipitation and
consequent streamflow has on the coastal ocean, even in a
region of overall low freshwater input, and provides an
ocean-based metric for assessing decadal rainfall variability.
Federal lawmakers representing four California districts with
pristine farmland penned a letter to colleagues this week
urging passage of a bipartisan disaster recovery package for
farmers and ranchers devastated by heavy winter storms earlier
this winter. The letter requests aid for areas impacted during
a storm window ranging from Dec. 27 of last year to Jan 16.
According to a release from [Rep. Jimmy] Panetta’s office,
California was hit with nine atmospheric river storms during
that period, dumping roughly 32 trillion gallons of water on
the state and causing more than $500 million in estimated
damages to agricultural operations in the lawmaker’s regions.
Lois Henry is the engine behind the small but mighty two-person
journalistic operation that is SJV Water, an independent,
nonprofit news site dedicated to covering water in the San
Joaquin Valley. She and reporting partner Jesse Vad have been
at ground zero for much of the spring flooding that’s already
occurred. We asked her what she’s seen—and what might happen as
the weather heats up. The San Joaquin Valley has already
experienced serious flooding this year. What are you seeing on
the ground? First, I know that some people are cheering on
the return of Tulare Lake. The water is coming back to the
former lake bed, but I want to be clear that it’s not
pretty.
Lawmakers want Gov. Gavin Newsom to devote an additional $200
million to flooding in the San Joaquin Valley as their
districts recover from flood damage and face down the new
threat of rapidly melting snow in the southern Sierra Nevada. A
group of 12 bipartisan members of the state assembly requested
the funding for disaster relief in a letter Tuesday, citing the
need for greater emergency response to flooding and more
investment in protection efforts long term. … In his January
budget proposal, Newsom cut $40 million for floodplain
restoration projects in the San Joaquin Valley, which allow for
rivers to flood in strategic places during storms or snowmelt,
reducing the risks downstream and benefiting ecosystems.
Tulare Lake, the long dormant lake that made a surprise
comeback in California’s San Joaquin Valley this year, has
gotten so big with the wet weather that water experts say it
won’t drain until at least next year, and maybe well after
that. … While landowners as well as local, state and
federal officials are focused on keeping major towns and
infrastructure dry, the broader issue of whether there’s a
better way to manage water in the basin looms. … the
re-emergence of the lake, for some, has sparked a sense of awe
and enthusiasm, if not the desire for a more natural, more
resilient landscape. Nowhere does this sentiment run
deeper than among the ancestors of the native Yokuts whose
creation story was inspired by the historical waters.
Following an epic winter that has grown the California snowpack
to historic levels, the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power is preparing for an equally epic runoff season. With the
Eastern Sierra snowpack at 296% of normal, the municipally
owned water agency for the City of Los Angeles is anticipating
runoff to be 225% of normal and is implementing safety
measures. Runoff season, when temperatures increase and snow
melts, typically lasts from May to June, but with an extra 326
billion gallons of water needing to go somewhere, LADWP expects
runoff season to last through August. … Doing so allows LADWP
to use aqueduct water instead of water purchased from other
places. The agency expects 130 billion gallons of water to come
to the city through the LA Aqueduct this spring and summer —
enough to meet 80% of the city’s annual demand.
Most of Yosemite Valley will close to the public this Friday,
through at least Wednesday of next week, because of the
potential for flooding along the Merced River. The
extraordinary snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada this year
is beginning to melt with the warm weather this week, swelling
rivers with runoff and creating the likelihood of high water in
mountain creeks and rivers, including those in
Yosemite. The shutdown at the park will affect
campgrounds, hotels, shops and visitor centers in the valley,
the most popular part of Yosemite. Park officials warn that the
closure will likely mean other parts of Yosemite see much
heavier traffic. Officials say visitors should prepare for
limited parking throughout the park.
Climate scientists already know that the East Coast of the
United States could see around a foot of sea-level rise by
2050, which will be catastrophic on its own. But they are just
beginning to thoroughly measure a “hidden vulnerability” that
will make matters far worse: The coastline is
also sinking. … The primary cause of dramatic land
subsidence is over-extracting groundwater from it, which makes
the terrain collapse like an empty water bottle. In San
Jose, California, this has lowered the elevation by as much as
12 feet. The combination of sea-level rise and subsidence could
inundate up to 165 square miles of Bay Area coastline by 2100,
according to Shirzaei’s previous research.
[A]n immense wall of snow has started to drain from the
Sierra Nevada as the skies warm over a near-record
snowpack. “The Big Melt is now officially arriving,” Daniel
Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los
Angeles, tweeted late last week. … Already, the bed of
Tulare Lake, which was the largest body of fresh water
west of the Mississippi River before it was drained, has
begun to refill in Kings County, submerging the great stretches
of prime agricultural land and major dairy operations that took
its place. And only about 5 percent of the snowpack has melted
so far, according to Swain. (The indefatigable Swain has been
an invaluable resource in educating the public on these complex
climate disasters.)
El Niño is likely next winter and that could play an important
role in the weather in parts of storm-weary California and the
West. But there are some important caveats and stubborn myths
about this that also need to be addressed. Here’s everything
you need to know about what could happen next winter season
with an over 80 percent chance of El Niño developing by summer
and then lasting into the winter.
Anja Raudabaugh is the CEO of Western United Dairies, a trade
organization that represents over 75% of the milk produced in
California. In mid-March, a sudden snowmelt flooded the Tulare
Lake basin—putting 100,000 cattle and over a dozen dairy farms
at risk. During the crisis, Raudabaugh shared eye-popping
images of flooding and cattle evacuations on her Twitter feed,
and she recently gave us a gripping account of what happened as
the lake began to refill. In January and February,
beautiful, cold snows brought the snowpack in the southern
Sierras down to 1,000–3,000 feet. Then before St. Patricks’
Day, all that low-elevation snowpack melted at once when the
region was hit with a large, warm storm. And when all that
water came down, the river channels just couldn’t handle it.
On May 5, growers in the agriculturally rich Salinas Valley
plan to sit down with a bevy of regulators to formulate a
channel maintenance program for the Salinas River that they
hope will prevent the kind of losses experienced from the
second catastrophic flood in less than 40 years. Norm Groot,
the executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, is
leading the effort to reach out to five different state and
federal government agencies to try and reach a compromise that
will allow growers to clear brush and sediment out of the river
channel to increase water capacity and lessen the impact of
flood waters on cropland.
The Tehama County Flood Control and Water Conservation District
has been sued along with its board of directors by a trustee of
Bell Ranch. David Garst filed suit on April 3, alleging the
district violated Propositions 13, 218, and 26, Government Code
section 54999.7, along with common law of utility rulemaking,
when the TCFC passed a $0.29 per acre registration fee on June
20, 2022. The lawsuit was the subject of a special meeting that
was a joint closed session with the County Board of Supervisors
and the TCFC on April 18. That meeting was held one day after
the regular April 17 meeting was canceled. In the 15-page
filing, He’s asking that the court vacate and rescind the fee
and refund him any payment of the fee, to stop charging him
based simply on the amount of acreage he owns, absent any
evidence in the rate-making record that demonstrates the basis
to impose the charge and “Commission a cost of service analysis
to establish a sufficient basis for charges.”
Sea level rise lapping over and pushing up groundwater under
the California shoreline is the next climate threat in a state
already thrashed around by wildlife, drought and deluge. State
and federal scientists are preparing a comprehensive assessment
of the threat that rising seas pose to California, updating a
highly scientific and complicated document from 2018 (PDF) with
the latest science in user-friendly guidance for local
leaders. The new sea level rise plan will
incorporate federal climate models from last year and
attempts to compel cities and counties to take ownership of the
issue, coordinate and move rapidly to prepare for rising tides
at the local level.
Oprah Winfrey has amassed an impressive collection of Montecito
real estate over the last two decades. But the media mogul’s
latest headline in the luxury community is not about a house,
but a wall — one that neighbors fear might reroute flooding
onto their properties during the next rainstorm. After months
of heavy rainfall and flooding across the community, a boulder
wall was installed along San Ysidro Creek, which runs along
Winfrey’s estate, to protect the property from flooding and
creek erosion, according to Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk.
… It’s a reasonable precaution; Montecito has long been
prone to weather disasters, including a 2018
mudslide filmed by Winfrey that killed 23
people, a number of whom were swept into San Ysidro Creek. …
But residents fear that the wall could redirect the creek,
pushing floodwater onto other properties during intense
rainfall.
Fumika Takahashi recalled a gray January day when she set out
to rescue rabbits. The federal wildlife biologist kayaked along
the lower San Joaquin River, which had risen close to the
treetops. She and other experts hoped to find a rare species
called the riparian brush rabbit. … She works for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which ended up catching about
100 rabbits in January with help from other entities. About 180
more followed as the storms continued into March, relocated to
land less prone to flooding. A few died. … The rescue
took place at the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge.
It stretches across about 7,500 acres in Stanislaus and San
Joaquin counties.
There’s a fever in California’s gold country these days, the
kind that comes with the realization that nature is unlocking
another stash of precious metal. California’s prodigious winter
rainfall blasted torrents of water through mountain streams and
rivers. And as the warmer weather melts the massive banks of
snow — one research station in the Sierra recorded 60 feet for
the season — the rushing waters are detaching and carrying gold
deposits along the way. The immense wildfires of recent years
also loosened the soil, helping to push downstream what some
here are calling flood gold.
It was the snowpack reading that spawned a hundred headlines.
“California ties 1952 record for all-time Sierra snowpack,”
proclaimed KTVU. “California’s snowpack soars to record high
after 17 atmospheric rivers,” trumpeted the Washington Post.
State officials largely seemed to agree. … But this year
wasn’t a record at all. It only appeared that way in large part
because of the state’s shifting definition of a “normal”
snowpack, which critics say obscures the true impact of climate
change. And, in a closer look at the state’s seven decades
of snowpack data, 1952 — the year atop the state’s data —
wasn’t a record either. That top honor should go to 1983, which
cinched first at 231% of normal, a new analysis by the Bay Area
News Group found, when “normal” is considered the average
dating back to 1950, the start of the state’s recordkeeping.
This year’s Earth Day comes as California emerges from a winter
and spring marked by extreme precipitation, following years of
drought and last fall’s historic heat wave. Over the past
several months, Californians have been buffeted by more than a
dozen atmospheric rivers that have caused more than $5 billion
in damage across the state—with more damage expected when the
Sierra Nevada snowpack melts in the coming weeks. As climate
change becomes more clearly linked to extreme weather, what do
Californians think about the need to counter its effects?
According to the February 2023 PPIC Statewide Survey, three in
four Californians think it is necessary to take steps to
counter the effects of climate change right away, while one in
four say it is not necessary to take steps yet.
Weather forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration on Thursday issued their latest outlook for the
United States, and there’s at least one piece of hopeful news
for a state that has already had a wild year, weather-wise:
California. The gargantuan piles of snow that this winter’s
powerful storms left in the Sierra Nevada have prompted
concerns about the flooding that could result when all that
frozen water starts to melt and head downhill. But according to
NOAA’s latest forecasts, temperatures for May through July are
highly likely to be in line with historical averages across
California and Nevada. For May, much of California could even
see cooler-than-normal conditions, the agency said. This could
mean the snow’s melting would be more gradual than abrupt, more
beneficial to water supplies than destructive to homes and
farms.
Supporting ongoing storm response and recovery
efforts, Governor Gavin Newsom today proclaimed a state of
emergency in the counties of Contra Costa, Riverside, San
Diego, and Yolo, which join the 47 counties for which the
Governor has previously proclaimed a state of emergency since
the start of severe winter storms in late February. At Governor
Newsom’s request, President Biden has issued a Presidential
Emergency Declaration and a Presidential Major
Disaster Declaration, which has since been expanded to
include additional counties, to bolster state and local
storm response efforts. The text of today’s emergency
proclamation can be found here.
As California’s wet winter has given way to warmer spring
weather, the state’s record snowpack has begun to melt. Though
the accumulated snow still measures 249% of normal as of April
18, new satellite photos show that the white blankets
enveloping mountains across the state have started to recede.
The Southern Sierra continues to be the standout region, with
snow levels on slopes there at more than 300% of normal.
Satellite images seen below from NASA’s Earth Observing System
Data and Information System, or EOSDIS, show the snowy Sierra
on March 16 (left), and a month later (right).
It isn’t just water that’s been barreling down the Kern River
in this historic water year. Trees, shrubs, trash – even
old appliances – have come swirling down the river bed, plucked
out by heavy equipment and piled on the banks in massive
heaps. City of Bakersfield crews, along with other
agencies, worked round the clock getting debris out of the
swollen river after the March 10 storm drenched the valley and
flushed low elevation snow through the system. The amount
of debris has diminished but with this year’s runoff expected
to break records, it could still be a problem. In past
years, the City of Bakersfield would have cleared away most of
that debris when it was dry in anticipation of exactly this
type of big water year.
A new satellite by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will soon
provide more precise — and vital — data on how much water is
available on Earth’s surface, allowing better forecasts for
extreme weather conditions such as droughts and floods, and
helping water resources managers and farmers to get a better
picture of their water budget. The international Surface Water
and Ocean Topography or SWOT mission was launched in December
2022 from Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
While SWOT won’t solve water problems, the mission will provide
better information on how communities can plan and respond in
the future, according to the JPL…. The high-definition
data of freshwater bodies… will become available by the end
of 2023….
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues
associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
Biologists have designed a variety
of unique experiments in the past decade to demonstrate the
benefits that floodplains provide for small fish. Tracking
studies have used acoustic tags to show that chinook salmon
smolts with access to inundated fields are more likely than their
river-bound cohorts to reach the Pacific Ocean. This is because
the richness of floodplains offers a vital buffet of nourishment
on which young salmon can capitalize, supercharging their growth
and leading to bigger, stronger smolts.
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
USACE Sacramento District has a proven track record of facing
challenges head-on. When 2020 brought with it the Novel
Coronavirus, the District responded quickly to address the
needs of a rapidly changing work environment…This year marked
the start of major construction on the [American River Common
Features] project, and the pandemic hit just as crews were
mobilizing, meaning both USACE and its contractors faced
unexpected public impacts.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The islands of the western
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are sinking as the rich peat soil
that attracted generations of farmers dries out and decays. As
the peat decomposes, it releases tons of carbon dioxide – a
greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere. As the islands sink, the
levees that protect them are at increasing risk of failure, which
could imperil California’s vital water conveyance system.
An ambitious plan now in the works could halt the decay,
sequester the carbon and potentially reverse the sinking.
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The Colorado River Basin’s 20 years
of drought and the dramatic decline in water levels at the
river’s key reservoirs have pressed water managers to adapt to
challenging conditions. But even more extreme — albeit rare —
droughts or floods that could overwhelm water managers may lie
ahead in the Basin as the effects of climate change take hold,
say a group of scientists. They argue that stakeholders who are
preparing to rewrite the operating rules of the river should plan
now for how to handle these so-called “black swan” events so
they’re not blindsided.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
Just because El Niño may be lurking
off in the tropical Pacific, does that really offer much of a
clue about what kind of rainy season California can expect in
Water Year 2019?
Will a river of storms pound the state, swelling streams and
packing the mountains with deep layers of heavy snow much like
the exceptionally wet 2017 Water Year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30,
2017)? Or will this winter sputter along like last winter,
leaving California with a second dry year and the possibility of
another potential drought? What can reliably be said about the
prospects for Water Year 2019?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine?, a one-day event on Dec. 5 in Irvine,
water managers and anyone else interested in this topic will
learn about what is and isn’t known about forecasting
California’s winter precipitation weeks to months ahead, the
skill of present forecasts and ongoing research to develop
predictive ability.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
The Colorado River Basin is more
than likely headed to unprecedented shortage in 2020 that could
force supply cuts to some states, but work is “furiously”
underway to reduce the risk and avert a crisis, Bureau of
Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman told an audience of
California water industry people.
During a keynote address at the Water Education Foundation’s
Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento, Burman said there is
opportunity for Colorado River Basin states to control their
destiny, but acknowledged that in water, there are no guarantees
that agreement can be reached.
Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.
And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Every day, people flock to Daniel
Swain’s social media platforms to find out the latest news and
insight about California’s notoriously unpredictable weather.
Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the
Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, famously coined the
term “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” in December 2013 to describe
the large, formidable high-pressure mass that was parked over the
West Coast during winter and diverted storms away from
California, intensifying the drought.
Swain’s research focuses on atmospheric processes that cause
droughts and floods, along with the changing character of extreme
weather events in a warming world. A lifelong Californian and
alumnus of University of California, Davis, and Stanford
University, Swain is best known for the widely read Weather West blog, which provides
unique perspectives on weather and climate in California and the
western United States. In a recent interview with Western
Water, he talked about the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, its
potential long-term impact on California weather, and what may
lie ahead for the state’s water supply.
Atmospheric rivers are relatively
narrow bands of moisture that ferry precipitation across the
Pacific Ocean to the West Coast and are key to California’s
water
supply.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
In a state with such topsy-turvy weather as California, the
ability of forecasters to peer into the vast expanse of the
Pacific Ocean and accurately predict the arrival of storms is a
must to improve water supply reliability and flood management
planning.
The problem, according to Jeanine Jones, interstate resources
manager with the state Department of Water Resources, is
that “we have been managing with 20th century
technology with respect to our ability to do weather
forecasting.”
Work crews repairing Oroville Dam’s damaged emergency spillway
are dumping 1,200 tons of rock each hour and using shotcrete to
stabilize the hillside slope, an official with the Department of
Water Resources told the California Water Commission today.
The pace of work is “round the clock,” said Kasey Schimke,
assistant director of DWR’s legislative affairs office.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
A hydrograph illustrates a type of activity of water during a
specific time frame. Salinity and acidity are sometimes measured,
but the most common types
are stage and discharge hydrographs. These graphs show how
surface water flow responds to fluxes in precipitation.
Prado Dam – built in 1941 in
response to the Santa Ana
River’s flood-prone past – separates the river into its
upper and lower watersheds. After the devastation of the
deadly Los
Angeles Flood of 1938 that impacted much of Southern
California, it became evident that flood protection was woefully
inadequate, prompting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to
construct Prado Dam.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
California’s seasonal weather is
influenced by El Niño and La Niña – temporary climatic conditions
that, depending on their severity, contribute to weather that is
wetter or drier than normal.
El Niño and La Niña episodes typically last nine to 12 months,
but some events may last for years. While their frequency can be
quite irregular, El Niño and La Niña events occur on average
every two to seven years. Typically, El Niño occurs more
frequently than La Niña, according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past,
present and future of flood management in California’s Central
Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced
the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand.
Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from
California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood
Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they
discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood
protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic
flood management plan for the Central Valley.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
15-minute DVD that graphically portrays the potential disaster
should a major earthquake hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Delta Warning” depicts what would happen in the event of an
earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale: 30 levee breaks,
16 flooded islands and a 300 billion gallon intrusion of salt
water from the Bay – the “big gulp” – which would shut down the
State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumping plants.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Flood Management explains the
physical flood control system, including levees; discusses
previous flood events (including the 1997 flooding); explores
issues of floodplain management and development; provides an
overview of flood forecasting; and outlines ongoing flood control
projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
