A series of powerful storms is set to soak California over the next week, bringing heavy rains, flooding risk in some creeks and 10 feet or more of new snow to the Sierra Nevada — the latest sign that the stranglehold of the state’s five-year drought is significantly weakening.
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At least three storms are forecast to crash in from the Pacific Ocean, weather forecasters said Tuesday, dumping 3 to 4 inches of rain on most Bay Area cities by next Monday, and 8 to 10 inches in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Marin hills and Big Sur coast. Friday may provide one dry day, but otherwise, every day this week should be wet, with the hardest rain on Saturday, forecasters said.
“It’s not a lot of little storms,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Saratoga. “These are significant rain producers.”
Steady rains since October, combined with near-normal rainfall last winter, have all but ended the drought in some Northern California areas, particularly on the coast.
SJM-DROUGHT-0104-90As of last Thursday, 58 percent of California was classified as being in “severe drought,” down from 88 percent a year ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Nebraska.
Much of Northern California, including San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin and every coastal county to the Oregon border, along with northern Santa Clara and northern Santa Cruz counties, are no longer classified as being in drought conditions at all for the first time in four years, according to the Drought Monitor, which analyzes precipitation, soil moisture and other factors.
But other parts of California, notably Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and the southern San Joaquin Valley, which have not seen consistent rain in recent years, are still classified as being in exceptional or extreme drought.
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How stark is the difference? All seven reservoirs owned by the Marin Municipal Water District were full to the top Tuesday. But 350 miles to the south, Lake Cachuma, a primary source of water for the city of Santa Barbara, was only 8 percent full. On Jan. 1, the Santa Barbara City Council imposed a ban on all lawn watering to conserve dwindling supplies, even after residents cut water use 35 percent last year. Construction to reopen Santa Barbara’s ocean desalination plant, which closed 25 years ago after the last severe drought ended and its water costs were too high, is set to be complete by March, which will help boost the city’s perilous water outlook.
The northern part of the state is in much better shape.
As of Tuesday afternoon, San Francisco was at 102 percent of the historic average rainfall for this date, with Sacramento at 150 percent, Eureka at 163 and Oakland at 110 percent. San Jose was still at 84 percent, after missing some of the big October storm action. On Tuesday, the heaviest rains were in the North Bay, where many communities received an inch or more. Parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains received up to 2 inches.
All the rain has boosted reservoir levels. The 154 reservoirs tracked by the State Department of Water Resources held 21.5 million acre-feet of water at the end of December — 98 percent of their historic average for Dec. 31.
“Precipitation and storage are doing quite well compared to the past five years of historic drought conditions,” said Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources. “That makes us cautiously optimistic about water conditions, although some areas in California are still hit hard by the drought and require a response.”
The turnaround from a year ago is breathtaking. Shasta Lake, California’s biggest reservoir, near Redding, is at 118 percent of its historic average, up from 50 percent this time last year. And Lake Oroville in Butte County, the second largest in the state, is at 91 percent of historic capacity, up from 47 percent a year ago.
Because of the significantly different conditions around the state, the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to ease drought rules in the next two weeks, releasing new rules that will assign a water conservation target to each city, water company and water district, based on the amount of rainfall it has received, along with other factors, such as groundwater and reservoir levels.
“We’re seeing vast improvement in water supply conditions over much of the state this winter,” said Max Gomberg, a climate and conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board. “It’s a really promising sign of recovery from this drought. However, there are parts of the state that are still feeling the effects of the drought, and are still short of water.”
Gomberg said that it’s likely the new rules, which the state water board is scheduled to vote on Feb. 7, will permanently lock in some conservation measures that grew out of the drought. Those likely will include a requirement that the 410 largest cities, water companies and water districts in California continue to publicly report their water use to the state every month, and that wasteful water practices, such as hosing down sidewalks or washing cars without nozzles on the hose, are permanently banned.
Some cities with ample water supplies will have no numerical conservation target from the state, he said, while others in drier areas will.
This week’s rainy weather is already affecting the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the snowpack makes up about one-third of California’s water supply.
Between Sunday and Tuesday afternoon, 3 feet of new snow fell at Squaw Valley ski area near Lake Tahoe, and 2 feet had blanketed the ground at Sugar Bowl and Heavenly resorts.
State officials held their first manual snow survey of the year on Tuesday. And although the snowpack in the Sierra totaled just 70 percent of the historic average for Jan. 3 — due to warm storms in weeks past — those totals are expected to jump significantly in the days ahead as the new storms dump up to four feet of snow by Thursday at higher elevations and perhaps 5 more feet over the weekend.
“It’s early days. We still have three really solid months of winter remaining and a wet prognosis for at least a week,” said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/03/california-drought-first-snow-survey-of-the-year-tuesday-as-big-storms-forecast/
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