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Drought update: Today’s drought monitor shows little improvement

Posted by: Maven on February 19, 2009 at 8:33 am

Here is today’s drought monitor – not much improvement over last weeks picture, despite our recent precipitation.

From Riverside’s Press-Enterprise:

Recent storms dropped lots of rain and snow on California but not enough to relieve the drought that will almost certainly bring rationing for Inland residents in the coming months, water officials said Wednesday.

This week’s storm boosted snowpack in the Sierra, but it is still only about 73 percent of normal for this time of year, said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist with the state Department of Water Resources. The January reading was 61 percent of normal.

“It’s in the right direction, but it’s certainly not enough,” Lynn said. “We need four or five more storms like we just had to be an average season.”

The latest weather system also brought rainfall totals in many areas to above normal for February, said Tina Stall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in San Diego.

Of course, above normal precipitation doesn’t matter much to San Diego, which has little local water resources and is highly dependent upon imported water. From the Voice of San Diego:

San Diego imports about 90 percent of its water from two major sources, the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. So unless it’s snowing heavily there, too, the local rainfall isn’t as consequential.

It does help suppress demand. Most folks turn off their sprinklers during a rainstorm. (We’re looking at you, CalTrans.) And it helps to fill up local reservoirs. Even in the wettest years, though, those reservoirs have only captured enough water to provide part of our supply.

More from the Voice of San Diego by clicking here.

Reservoir levels, not great (borrowing from yesterday’s Capital Press article):

Trinity Lake: 41 percent
Shasta Lake: 34 percent
Lake Oroville: 30 percent
New Bullards Bar Reservoir: 50 percent
Folsom Lake: 28 percent
New Melones Reservoir: 49 percent
Lake McClure: 29 percent
Millerton Lake: 51 percent
Pine Flat Reservoir: 25 percent
Lake Isabella: 22 percent
San Luis Reservoir: 36 percent

So what does the future have in store for us? The Western Weather Blog says another storm appears to be headed our way at the beginning of next week – more details to come on Friday.

February 19, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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