Water is rapidly flowing into the state’s reservoirs. “This might well be just another case of a wet year followed by a string of dry ones,” Mount said. Many climate experts believe California’s predominant weather pattern in the future will be one of steady drought conditions broken periodically by very wet interludes. Since the big water year of 2006, only three - 2011, 20 - have been notably wet. While many experts refer to California’s 2013-2016 drought, as though it had a clear beginning and an end, others, like Mount, feel that particular drought hasn’t yet ended - the current drought is just an extension of it.Īfter all, most years in the past 15 have produced an underwhelming amount of rainfall. Some, like Delta smelt and winter-run Chinook salmon, are endangered and, faced with an array of human-induced stressors, probably never will recover.ĭetermining when a drought begins and ends is tricky. Drought has harmed a variety of fish species, and it will take years for them to rebound. California’s aquatic ecosystems are another. The San Joaquin Valley’s groundwater basins, where thousands of wells have run dry, are just one example of drought impacts that can take years to reverse. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters
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A series of strong rainstorms has inundated the region since New Year’s Eve. “If you’re in San Francisco, and you rely on surface storage from Hetch Hetchy, this is great … But if you’re in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, where massive pumping of groundwater has dried out your well, it will take successive years of rain like this to make a difference.” The American River at Discovery Park in Sacramento was flooded on Jan. “Drought is in the eye of the beholder,” said Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Its water supply - Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, in the Sierra Nevada - is 80% full, the ground is saturated and near-record rainfall has occurred in recent days. In some places, it might feel like the drought is history. With at least two more storms approaching California over the next week, we look at what all this means for drought conditions and water supply. The storms also come at a time when scientists are predicting a long-term shift toward a warmer, drier climate. That designation is based on a long list of complex metrics, including soil moisture, water shortages, levels of streams and lakes, snow cover and runoff. Abruptly, a state emerging from the dust of three painfully dry years was inundated with more water than it knew what to do with.īut the wet and wild weather over the past dozen days won’t end the drought, at least not yet, and it won’t undo the driest period in the West in the past 1,200 years.Ībout 71% of California was experiencing “severe” drought on Wednesday, dropping to 46% today, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Meanwhile, the Pacific Ocean continued to whip up more atmospheric rivers and “bomb cyclones,” and one after another, these intense storms pummeled California. Rural levees burst and rivers spilled their banks.
Parched watersheds soaked up the first rains, but soon became waterlogged. The year 2023 began with a historic bang - record precipitation and disastrous flooding throughout much of California. A dozen days of wet and wild weather haven’t ended the drought, and won’t cure the driest period in the West in the past 1,200 years. NWS Precipitation Image overlays are provided by the National Weather Service.
USGS rain-gage data shown in the table are available at Water Data for the Nation : Current Illinois Precipitation
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Legend colors apply to both USGS gage and National Weather Service precipitation overlays (at full opacity).
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