“Nearly all California reservoirs are at or above average levels.”
California water situation far more healthy than presumed
H.B. Schmidt
Plenty of information on the 130+ inches (330+ cm) of new snow at June Mountain including some amazing pictures.
I had to look up what the latest California reservoir situation is with the recent rains and a report from 24 Jan 2019 that stated “Nearly all California reservoirs are at or above average levels.” The January storms added 580 billion gallons (1.8 million acre-feet) to the state’s reservoirs.
https://ktla.com/2019/01/24/californias-reservoirs-receive-580-billion-gallons-of-water-from-january-storms/
So with all of that in mind I went to the state’s water resources website and checked their infographic of the latest reservoir levels:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain
This shows that California’s water situation is far more healthy than presumed by the US Drought Monitor (with the exception of Lake Oroville, which is still under constraints due to the spillway damage sustained in 2017.) The current snow water equivalent (SWE) for the intermountain West also shows normal to above normal SWE levels for this time of year.
https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/gis/images/west_swepctnormal_update.png
There’s still two months left in the main precipitation period for California (Nov-Mar) and even at the beginning of the Oct 1st water year in 2018, most reservoirs were doing just fine. I’m wondering if Jerry Brown’s departure has anything to do with his state’s “perma-drought” being not so permanent?
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February 5, 2019 at 07:12PM
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