I notice they avoided calling it a *** dream
Posted by TW on April 3, 2019 at 19:46 UTC (1 day ago)
Categories: Featured articles, Ice & snow, Water crisis
They note:
Snowpack at the station was at 200% of average while statewide snowpack is 162% of average.
“This is great news for this year’s water supply, but water conservation remains a way of life in California, rain or shine,” California Department of Water Resources said.
The state has experienced more than 30 atmospheric rivers since the start of the water year, six in February alone, and statewide snow water equivalent has nearly tripled since February 1, officials said.
Phillips Station now stands at 106.5 inches (270.5 cm) of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 51 inches (129.5 cm), which is 200% of average for the location. Statewide, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is 162% of average.
Of course being California:
“Based on snowpack numbers, we have the potential for some minor flooding due to melting snow so we remind folks to always stay vigilant and aware,” said Jon Ericson, DWR Chief of the Division of Flood Management.
The state’s largest six reservoirs currently hold between 106% (Oroville) and 132% (Melones) of their historical averages for this date. Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface reservoir, is 109% of its historical average and sits at 89% of capacity.
Read the full The Watchers article here.
Californians will soon get the obligatory fire season caution because:
Dry winter—fuel will be dried out and cause major fire risk.
Wet winter—there will be an excess of fuel and major fire risk.
Average winter—conditions in California are ripe for major fire risk after years of perpetual drought.
HT/Willie Soon
Charles,
Please fix the title – it isn’t “162 percent of normal” – it is “162 percent of average”.
It will give You in CA a green spring, a brown summer and black autumn.
Clean up those bushes!
And how long before it is back to drought?
The idea that continued drought is OK because extreme weather events will come along and deposit huge amounts of water/snow at irregular intervals is just daft.
California may have the snowpack now, but it is not the regular precipitation it had in the recent past which is providing it.
If I eat 7 burgers on a Sunday, but none for the rest of the week, I’m not getting the same amount of food (though perhaps you guys all eat 7 burgers on a Sunday. I wouldn’t blame you if you did!)
After all the droughts, fires, hail storms, floods, mud slides, and restrictions on personal freedoms, in California, it is a good job they don’t have earthquakes, no one would want to live there
April Pacific sub-surface plot … no El-Nino trend.
http://www.bom.gov.au/archive/oceanography/ocean_anals/IDYOC007/IDYOC007.201904.gif
“Californians will soon get the obligatory fire season caution because” ROFL…
Because California always has a fire season 😁
It’s only temporary I’m sure (they’ll say).
It seems you have the script.
What are the snow pack estimates in the ArkStorm scenarios?
If the public could only grasp the importance of CYCLES, the doomsday climate insanity of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would evaporate like a rain puddle on a hot, sunny day.
The snowpack presents a substantial flooding risk for the Central Valley. If a warm tropical rain falls on the snowpack for a couple of days, the snowpack could melt suddenly and release tends of inches of water all at once. This is by far enough to exceed the capacity of the flood-control reservoirs.
This year is a repeat of the very wet and snowy 2017 that wiped away the California drought.
2018 brought back the drought chatter and here we are with another total saturation.
Everything is full or near full with run off ahead.
No drought anywhere in the state is pretty rare.
https://countyofsb.org/uploadedFiles/pwd/Content/Water/Documents/rainfallreport.pdf
Hardly any drought nationwide
An increased frequency of wet years may be indicating an impressive wet cycle.
The persistently dry Santa Barbara county is enjoying a stellar year.
https://countyofsb.org/uploadedFiles/pwd/Content/Water/Documents/rainfallreport.pdf
Rather fascinating that there is so much snow in the Nevada deserts in the lee of the Sierras.
I wouldn’t pretend to know too much about California, my only trip there was to San Francisco many years ago.
However, reading the very early editions of the ‘US weather review’ dating to the 1850’s in one form or another, available in the Met office library, several things struck me.
The first being that all the reports year by year since the 1850’s seemed to show it as often a hot dry and drought prone region, but that at times it had epic falls of rain and snow.
The second thing that struck me was how tiny the population was in the 1850’s and how rapidly it has grown since, together with all the resultant demands for irrigation, manufacturing, golf courses drinking water etc etc.
I have no idea whether the storage capacities of water have kept up with the population growth over the last 150 years but as the state continues to boom surely there is a finite limit to population unless the water concerns have been actively addressed
This is normal California climate. Don’t listen to the chicken littles in Hollywood.
From the South Lake Tahoe news front: 200%
http://southtahoenow.com/story/04/02/2019/sierra-snowpack-200-average
Just for info; the Great Lakes are also above average levels for this time of year.
https://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Missions/Great-Lakes-Information/Great-Lakes-Water-Levels/Water-Level-Forecast/Weekly-Great-Lakes-Water-Levels/
More Good News on the Permadrought that isn’t:
The upper Colorado River snow pack is currently 132% of the average for this date. And the peak average date is tomorrow, 6 April.
This snow determines how much Lake Powell will get and how much water managers can release to the downstream Lake Mead that gets so much press coverage.
Some relevant links for WUWTers viewing pleasure:
http://snowpack.water-data.com/uppercolorado/index.php
https://www.usbr.gov/UC_SnowMap/
For the Colorado River and its reservoirs, 2019 is now a better snow year than 2017’s bountiful snow.
And more snow and rain coming Saturday for the Rockies.
The problem isn’t climate change or even droughts, those are “fake” problems. They are contrived inventions to conceal political malpractice, because droughts though not “predictable” by specific years-ahead, they are predictable by historical occurrence.
The real problem is human demand on the available water supplies has steadily increased and few to no additional storage has been added for many decades.
I am hereby issuing the naming rights for the snow pack as the Jerry Brown Permanent Drought Snowpack to go along with the Jerry Brown Rail Line to Nowhere.
Moonbeam snow pack
Howler: “… after years of perpetual drought.”
Meanwhile, in northwest Montana, we are only at 79% of average. California stole “our” snow!
We’ve had 2 bad fire seasons in row, and 2019 could make it 3 if we get a lightning bust or two.
The 97% of Climate Scientist’s predictions of “Climate Change”‘s effects on California.
“Perpetual Drought” or “Perpetual Flooding”?
Flip a coin.
It’d be just as scientific.
Question:
What was the rain/snow total in California when Sacramento was flooded for 6 months in around 1865?
A documentary by Michael Portillo, Railroad journeys in America, saw him looking at the foundations that are 13 feet below the present buildings and roadways in the old town part of Sacramento. Both the American and Sacramento rivers and the central valley seem to have been inundated, so I guess it was a very wet and snowy winter.