With major reservoirs nearly full, the Sierra Nevada snowpack well above average and flood warnings in place for some rivers, federal scientists on Thursday reported a continued weakening of California’s drought.
Overall, 44 percent of the state remains in severe drought or worse, down from 49 percent a week ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The improved area, roughly 5.1 million acres, or nearly seven times the size of Yosemite National Park, is mostly in the central Sierra Nevada, which has been hit with major snowstorms in recent weeks.
A year ago this week, the same report found that 86 percent of California was in severe drought or worse.
A stark difference remains between Northern and Southern California: 42 percent of the state is out of the drought entirely, the same percentage as last week. The areas no longer in a drought include nearly all of Northern California from the Bay Area to Oregon.
Through next Monday night, however, between 9 to 13 inches of new precipitation is forecast to fall on coastal California and much of the Sierras, the report noted.
“These anticipated areas of heavy precipitation are likely to result in additional improvements to next week’s U.S. Drought Monitor depiction,” wrote Richard Tinker and Anthony Artusa, two meteorologists with NOAA who compiled Thursday’s report.
Despite some recent storms, Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have not seen anywhere near the volume of moisture as the north has this winter or last, and continue to suffer from significant drought conditions, the report said.
Each week, the scientists who write the drought monitor assign six levels of drought intensity: no drought, abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought and exceptional drought. They analyze soil moisture, stream levels, rainfall totals, snow pack, reservoir levels and other measurements in all 50 states, along with reported observations from more than 350 expert contributors around the country.
Twenty-four percent of California, including San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and western San Diego counties, along with much of the San Joaquin Valley, are still classified as being in “extreme” drought, down from 28 percent last week and 68 percent a year ago. About 2 percent is in “exceptional drought,” the worst category, down from 42 percent a year ago.
California officials, while acknowledging the dramatic improvements in the northern part of the state, continue to focus on those areas that are still struggling. They have said in recent weeks that Gov. Jerry Brown may rescind, or regionalize, the statewide drought emergency declaration he issued in January 2014, but not until at least April after the winter storm season is over in case the wet weather ends.
“Our water supply outlook is definitely brighter, but we still haven’t shaken off the effects of our historic drought,” said William Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources.
Califronia’s two biggest reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, are now 80 percent full and releasing water to keep space for flood control. Many Bay Area reservoirs are 100 percent full. Croyle noted, however, that some, such as Lake Cachuma, which is Santa Barbara’s main water supply and just 9 percent full, remain low, while some communities, such as East Porterville, near Bakersfield, continue to provide bottled water to people whose wells ran dry.
“We know from painful history that California winters can go quickly from very wet to very dry,” Croyle added. “We want to see the snowpack continue to build for the remainder of the wet season.”
Top water industry officials, however, are increasingly pushing back on the ‘glass half-empty’ message. In addition to the rain and snow, they note that full reservoirs in the north mean more supply also in the south, since much of the south’s water supply comes from the north.
“Water supply conditions have improved dramatically, and the public can readily see that,” said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, a group representing the more than 400 local water departments. “Continuing the message that we remain in a drought emergency strains our credibility at this point.”
The statewide Sierra snowpack, the source of one-third of California’s water supply, stood at 163 percent of the historic average Thursday, up from just 64 percent on New Year’s Day. It’s already 82 percent of the April 1 average. Two years ago, in April 2015, it was at 5 percent of average.
And the storms keep coming.
After heavy rain Wednesday night prompted the National Weather Service to issue flood advisories across the Bay Area, two new storm systems are expected to pound much of California on Friday and Sunday.
“Rainfall, and especially, snowfall, of this magnitude has not been seen in California since before the start of our severe multi-year drought,” in 2011, Daniel Swain, a climate researcher at UCLA, wrote on his blog ‘Weather West’ on Tuesday. “Unsurprisingly, this recent precipitation has brought considerable drought relief to the northern two thirds of the state.”
Even as state officials urged caution, they announced Wednesday that cities and farms will receive at least 60 percent of the maximum amount of water they are contracted to buy in the coming year from the State Water Project, up from just 20 percent two months ago. The department said that given the weather pattern so far this winter, it hopes to further boost deliveries — already the highest since 65 percent of contracted amounts were delivered in 2012 — in the coming months.
