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Changing weather patterns affect local water storage

Posted by: Maven on October 3, 2009 at 7:38 am

From the Visalia Times Delta:

“As if the costs of building new reservoirs and the battles over the rights of fish and farmers for water weren’t enough to complicate the debate over water in California, add changing weather patterns.

“The Valley has experienced a warmer-than-normal summer, and the fall also is expected to be warmer than normal,” said Scott Borgioli, a meteorlogist and partner in WeatherAg, a Visalia-based forecasting service for agriculture.

In addition, during the past 15 years snowfall in the Sierra — which, when the snowpack melts, supplies water to the Valley during non-winter months — has been ending earlier, in February or March rather than April, Borgioli said.

“The result really is from climate change,” he said.

In addition, this past spring was unusually warm, causing an unusual spring snowmelt that led the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates Millerton Lake in Fresno County — the source of water for the Friant-Kern Canal — to initiate a heavy spring water release.

“That’s actually been happening in the past three years as well,” Borgioli said. “When this happens, the reservoirs prematurely fill up, and the water has to be discharged … and then there’s not enough snowmelt to refill them in the early summer months,” he explained. …”

Read more from the Visalia Times-Delta by clicking here.

October 3, 2009 · Filed Under Storage and supply

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