A legal battle is about to start over water from the Colorado River

How much water will California have left over the next two years? The Sierra Snow Laboratory assesses the need for more snow during drought-plagued California

Parts of drought-plagued California are facing an onslaught of powerful storms to start the new year, bringing flooding rainfall and even mud and debris flows to the state.

Snowpack, which serves as a natural reservoir that eases the drought, has largely reached an all-time record high. The state’s largest reservoirs, which were recently at critically low levels, have been replenished and are way past its historical averages. Groundwater reserves, however, are still having a hard time recovering, even with all the rain.

Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist and station manager of University of California, Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory says they need more snow to function. He and others measure the amount of water that would be accessible to residents in the state.

The Sierras’ snowpack is alarmingly low due to the multiyear megadraught, while the reserves are also below historical averages.

The storm dropped water in places that really need it because of long-term dry spells and climate change, but it was good news, since it was a short-term disruption. “And, importantly, it dropped that water as snow, which is accumulating over weeks and months as snowpack, rather than warm rains that immediately turn into runoff.”

“Over the next two months, it is important that we still see periodic rain and snowstorms to keep an above average pace for our precipitation totals,” Mohr said.

Schwartz said that this isnt a guarantee of a full deep winter, so we need to be more efficient with the water we use.

Paul Miller, hydrologist at the River Forecast Office, said this one good year was not enough to alleviate the stress on the Colorado River. “It’s going to take multiple of these consecutive above-average years to fill a lot of the major reservoirs, especially Lake Powell.”

Failing to do so means either of these lakes, the largest manmade reservoirs in the country, could reach “dead pool” in the next two years, where the water level is too low to flow through the dams and downstream to the communities and farmers that need it.

As less and less water has been flowing through the river and its reservoirs, US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton last year called on the basin’s seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming – to figure out how to cut 2 to 4 million acre feet of usage, or as much as 30% of their river water allocation.

Western state officials wrote a letter in May agreeing to leave 1 million acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Then, they watched as the same amount of water disappeared due to system losses and evaporation.

“Everything we tried to do through the May 3 letter was wiped out by mother nature,” top Arizona water official Tom Buschatzke told CNN. We need to understand that could happen again. It has been happening to us regularly over the past few years.

Anxiety is growing in the West as reservoir levels plummet. Negotiations between the states on voluntary water cuts have been tense and closely watched, particularly between the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

There is a disagreement about how much water each state should sacrifice and how much money should be paid to reduce their water use.

State negotiators are themselves waiting for the feds to decide how it will dole out $4 billion in drought relief money, which the Biden administration fronted from the Inflation Reduction Act to essentially pay people to not use water.

He says that it makes it a little harder because of the uncertainty, and that the voluntary cuts districts are willing to make is different from the federal government’s money.

Water shortages in the Colorado River basin: What do biden and Trujillo tell us about California’s climate play with fire?

The man who was the top climate aide to President Joe Biden thinks that California is playing with fire. “This issue is bigger than any group of water rights holders. The implications of not addressing this issue could affect the economy of the entire state of California.”

There is a possibility the federal government will step in if voluntary cuts do not come close to what is needed. That plan would almost certainly be challenged in court.

At a December conference of Colorado River water users, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior Tanya Trujillo addressed that likelihood, according to Porter.

The upper Colorado River Basin’s snowpack was between 120 and 140% of normal as of last week. And the Arizona state climatologist’s office recently reported that 2023 ranks in the top five years for the amount of water it expects to get out of the snowpack as it melts.

And human-caused climate change is “almost certainly” going to make dry years worse, said Isla Simpson, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

During the heat, the soil is wet from the dry air in the air. This is another reason water shortages are plaguing the Colorado River; not only is there enough rain to fill reservoirs, but the air also sucks up water from what’s left of them.

She said that there is a high chance that thelack of rain and low snowpack will continue for a while. La Niña is expected to persist through the winter, which typically causes the jet stream – upper-level winds that carry storms around the globe – to shift northward. That means less rainfall for a region that desperately needs it.

Snowstorms and Flooding on Interstate 80 and Northern California: Redundant Water Rescues, Emergency Evacuation Orders, and Highway 101

Dozens of drivers were rescued on New Year’s Eve along Interstate 80 near Lake Tahoe after cars spun out in the snow, the California Department of Transportation said. The route to the mountains from the Bay Area reopened to passenger vehicles early Sunday.

“The roads are extremely slick so let’s all work together and slow down so we can keep I-80 open,” the California Highway Patrol said on Twitter. Several other highways, including State Route 50, also reopened.

The Bear Valley Ski Resort received 21 inches of snow in the 24 hours, the Sierra Snow Lab recorded 29.9 inches, the Sierra atTAo Ski Resort received 40 inches and Soda Springs received 40 inches.

At least 40,000 people in the capital of the state were still without electricity early Sunday, down from more than 150,000 people a day earlier, according to the online map.

The atmospheric river – a long, narrow region in the atmosphere which can carry moisture thousands of miles – fueled a parade of storms that dropped thick snow on the mountains and drenched northern California, shutting down roadways and prompting water rescues and evacuation orders.

Since October 1, the start of the water year, Los Angeles has received more than 24 inches of rain, which is nearly 200% of normal for the time period. California has seen between 150% and 200% of their normal rainfall since then.

Cars were submerged past their door handles in the flooded area of Highway 99 and Dillard Street. Chris Schamber, a fire captain with the Cosumnes Fire Department, told the station “dozens upon dozens” of people had been rescued.

A powerful storm system battering California on New Year’s Eve and expected to last through the weekend of December 22 through Sunday, April 2. Weather advisories, advisory notes and evacuation orders

With the region drying out on New Year’s Day and no rainfall expected during Monday’s Rose Parade in Pasadena, spectators began staking out their spots for the annual floral spectacle.

It was the first of several storms expected to roll across the state in the span of a week. Saturday’s system was warmer and wetter, while storms this week will be colder, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

The Los Angeles-area office of the National Weather Service said there would be a round of heavy showers in Southern California on Tuesday or Wednesday.

A powerful storm system that battered California on New Year’s Eve, bringing widespread flooding and power outages, is pushing into the Central US Monday as more than 15 million people from the West Coast to Illinois are under winter weather advisories.

There were two deaths in the storm, one of which was that of a person who was found dead in a submerged vehicle in Sacramento County and the other where a man was struck by a tree at a Santa Cruz park.

On Monday, snow is expected to fall across the Rockies, northern Plains, and eventually into parts of the Midwest where winter storm alerts are posted.

There is a chance of strong tornadoes and damaging winds in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana on Monday. Storms are expected to begin in the afternoon and will last through the overnight hours.

Emergency crews spent the weekend plucking flood victims by boats and helicopter, and responding to fallen trees and disabled vehicles in the flood waters, in the Sacramento County area.

An evacuation order was issued Sunday for the rural Sacramento County areas of Point Pleasant, while Glanville Tract and Franklin Pond were under an evacuation warning.

California Flood Warnings from a “Bomb Cyclone” Over the Cosumnes River and the Mokelumne River

“It is expected that the flooding from the Cosumnes River and the Mokelumne River is moving southwest toward I-5 and could reach these areas in the middle of the night,” the agency tweeted.

The day before, rising flood waters forced evacuations in Wilton, California, as well as three communities near the city of Watsonville in Santa Cruz County.

The California Department of Transportation said on its website that a section of Highway 99 near the Cosumnes River was closed due to flooding. “SR 99 is one of the state’s heavily traveled, and commercially important, corridors,” its website adds.

The weather system is expected to bring light to moderate valley rain and mountain snow to the area Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

Swain said this week’s storm will be another event that will rapidly strengthen and could even come close to what’s known as a “bomb cyclone” — a storm that rapidly intensifies at a rate of at least 24 millibars of pressure in 24 hours. The storm is expected to affect a large area of the California coast, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Southern California.

There will be a series of fronts on the West Coast when a so-called “bomb cyclone” waves over the Pacific Ocean. These fronts are being super-fueled with tropical moisture from a potent atmospheric river that stretches west to Hawaii.

According to the National Weather Service, the storm could trigger more widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, fallen trees, major power outages, “immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life.”

As wells run dry and reservoirs drain, Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said these storms are desperately needed more than ever to alleviate the drought, despite the hazards they bring in some areas.

California is bracing for a 12th atmospheric river that is expected to bring a new round of heavy snow and rain to the state.

“We haven’t seen the mega floods, but we have definitely seen hints of increasingly extreme precipitation even in the middle of what has otherwise been a period characterized by a pretty severe and persistent drought,” Swain said.

Over the next week, the National Weather Service said there would be a flurry of atmospheric rivers, with heavy rain and mountain snow. Atmospheric river storms are long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific and are capable of dropping staggering amounts of rain and snow.

State climatologist Michael Anderson told a news briefing late Saturday that officials were closely monitoring Monday’s incoming storm and another behind it and were keeping an eye on three other systems farther out in the Pacific.

Arizona and Nevada are moving in the wrong direction of water cuts: Resolving Colorado River basin-wide water budget deficits with a state law enforcement action

On Monday, six states – including lower basin states of Arizona and Nevada – released a letter and a proposed model for how much Colorado River water they could potentially cut to stave off a collapse and prevent the nation’s largest reservoirs, Lakes Mead and Powell, from hitting “dead pool,” when water levels will be too low to flow through the dams.

The basin-wide cuts proposed in the states’ model is at least 3.1 million acre feet per year. If the level of the lake falls catastrophically low, it could kick in.

Every year the Imperial Irrigation District gets the same amount of water as Arizona and Nevada.

Six states are moving in the wrong direction, and the lack of a consensus is troubling. “It is everyone’s best interest to avoid litigation, but being put into a situation like this where you have six states approaching things in this way raises the risk.”

As state consensus proves difficult to reach and pressure grows on the federal government to act unilaterally, many negotiators and outside observers are expecting this year to bring litigation that could wind up at the Supreme Court.

“I don’t know if the Supreme Court would take it,” Wade Noble, a lawyer representing Yuma, Arizona, farmers and irrigation districts, told CNN. “I suspect everybody who has been lawyering up wants to make sure their legal team has Supreme Court experience. The types of issues that get there are those.

The issue at the center of why it has been difficult for California and Arizona to agree on water cuts is this: who is first in line when there is a shortage.

In the negotiations that took place recently, Hamby said that they were not going to give up a century of history and position. Doing away with the priority approach is not acceptable.

“Decisions to cut back water deliveries below the Hoover Dam cannot wait for a complex water rights case to be litigated up through the Supreme Court. That can take years to do, according to Hayes. “Plus, no legal decision will solve the fundamental problem of insufficient water. That reality needs to be faced.”

The good news is that the new record snowpack will last through the winter months and the melting season, allowing for more storage in the reservoirs. The recent rains have helped raise the levels of the state’s largest structures, with the exception of Lake Oroville. Since the beginning of last year, the basins have risen between 100 and 180 feet.

Before-and-after photos show incredible improvement at the reservoir, which as of this week stood at 115% of the historical average for the date — a notable jump from just 61% in February 2021 and 77% in 2022.

The dirtbathtub ring is located around the edge of the lake to mark how far the water has fallen. By late January, the after images showed the bathtub ring was underwater once again.

The reservoir plunged to just 24% of total capacity in 2021. The lake’s water level sat well below boat ramps and exposed intake pipes, which are used to send water to power the plant.

The fourth-largest hydroelectric energyproducer in the state, the plant has the ability to provide power to up to two million homes when at full capacity. About 13% of the state’s electricity was generated by hydroelectric power plants as of 2018.

According to the California Department of Water Resources, these reservoirs gained almost 10 million acre-feet of water from November 30, 2022, to February 28, 2023 – an improvement from 67% to 96% of normal and from 35% to 61% of capacity. Storage gains have occurred in March, especially after recent storms. 326,000 gallons is the amount of water that would fill one acre a foot deep.

Lake Oroville and San Luis have gained a total of over one million acre-feet of water, which is roughly enough water for more than five million households for an entire year. A foot of water is roughly 326,000 gallons.

The Effect of USDA Enlarged Lake Powell on the Canyon River River and Lake Mead During February’s Snow Outburst

The Department of Water Resources director said during the state’s February 1 survey that the forecast was not looking good for rain and snow.

She said that this was actually a traditional wet month which started off dry, and that the dryness is expected to continue.

Kelly noted that while 10 feet of water “might not sound like a lot,” it would boost Lake Mead above the Tier 2 water cuts threshold, which went into effect in January. The Tier 2 shortage meant that Arizona, Nevada and Mexico had to reduce their Colorado River water usage, with Arizona facing the largest cuts – 592,000 acre-feet – or approximately 21% of the state’s yearly allotment of river water.

It’s all an example of how human-caused climate change is transforming water systems around the world, cranking up temperatures and making droughts more severe and frequent.

In order to increase the water level in Lake Powell and allow the surrounding communities more time to plan for a possible Glen Canyon Dam drop, the federal government began releasing additional water from Flaming Gorge in 2021.

Lake Powell in late February sank to its lowest water level since the reservoir was filled in the 1960s, and since 2000 has dropped more than 150 feet.

Tom Buschatzke is the top water official in Arizona. One year is not going to make much of a difference with the nation’s largest reservoirs being so low.

“Even really good hydrology – if it tracks the way it’s been tracking – it’s going to buy us 6 months or a year at most,” he said. “It’s not going to stabilize the system in any meaningful way.”

After months of negotiations with farmers, tribes and cities, federal officials will soon announce the results of its first round of voluntary short-term water cuts in the Southwest, paid for with part of the $4 billion in drought relief funds that were passed in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Top officials at the Department of Interior and Reclamation recently told a group of Western senators that they expect to be able to save up to 10 feet of elevation in Lake Mead – or about 650,000 acre-feet of water. That water savings will cost about $250 million of the total $4 billion, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was in the meeting, told CNN.

Farmers will save a lot of water if they fallow their fields for a few years. The longer a farmer agrees to fallow fields, the more money they get: A one-year agreement gets $330 per acre-foot, two years gets $365 per acre-foot, and three years gets $400 per acre-foot, according to the Interior Department.

Kelly said that additional portions of the $4 billion fund would go toward long-term water savings and conservation, like helping the West’s farmers install drip irrigation systems, which use less water.

Kelly said that the amount of water that is added to by different kinds of programs starts to add up. The only thing clear is that. It’s a game change to put that $4 billion into the Inflation Reduction Act.

Observational Evidence of an Unusually High Number of Atmospheric River Families in California during the February Snowpacking Season

According to the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office, thousands of people were ordered to leave Alpaugh and Allensworth as officials worried that roads would become barricaded and isolate residents. The sight of first responders from dozens of agencies helping to evacuate residents from flooded areas has become commonplace this winter season in the state.

“The devastation is indescribable,” Tulare County farmer Brandon Mendonsa told CNN affiliate KFSN. The water is still coming, but it is far from being done.

The state needed the heavy rain and snow this winter to refill its severely drained and depleted drinking water supplies.

“This is an unusually high number of storms this winter in California,” said Daniel Swain, climate scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles. “No matter how you slice it, no matter how you make these formal definitions, this is unusually many.”

He said that weak and low-end moderate storms tend to be less significant and bring more beneficial precipitation to the state. Meanwhile, the high-end atmospheric rivers are the big rain and snow producers, which lead to more severe impacts.

Hecht said this year has surpassed the average number of atmospheric rivers in the state. In early January, many of them came in a rapid succession of storms.

According to Hecht, they use the term “AR families” to describe the successive types of atmospheric rivers. We don’t see this type of family often, but the stretch of nine we had around New Year was a more active family than we typically see.

We have gotten at least one week in between this sequence and several weeks in between the other ones, so that is a good indication of how the winter has gone. “Had we had this winter and everything that happened back-to-back without any breaks during the storm cycles at all, the level of flooding and the level of damage in California would be dramatically higher.”

Atmospheric River Winter California Climate: The Case for High-Slope Snow Labs and the Los Angeles Biological Center during the 1953-2002 Sierra Flood

The Southern Sierra has never been higher since record-keeping began in the 1950s. The Central Sierra is at 231% of normal, which is almost at record high, and may reach that point soon after this most recent atmospheric river storm.

The Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, near the Lake, has received 663 inches of snow this year, which is second only to the winter of 1952 when 712 inches of snow fell.

Brad Rippey, meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture, said the acres of land that have been fallowed due to the drought should decrease in California for the 2023 growing season due to improved water allocations. Land for rice production in the Central Valley, for example, decreased from 517,000 acres in 2020 to 256,000 acres last year, according to the USDA.

But “those gains may be partially offset in areas where levee breaches caused extensive flooding,” Rippey said. The Salinas and Pajaro Rivers may not be planted in 2023 due to soil contaminated by flooding, or simply missing the right window for planting.

This winter’s precipitation will undoubtedly help the state’s reservoirs in the short-term, which have for several years been running at critically low levels.

The end of February is when the state’s 154 primary intrastate reservoirs are used to store water, but it does not include the amazing snow that will fall in the coming months.

According to Daniel Swain, a scientist with the University of California in Los Angeles, a large winter like this won’t solve the problem. That’s partly because they expect drought conditions to return as the West’s climate changes, but also because there’s just too much demand on the system.

It is not nearly enough because it is a supply and demand problem. We still got a lot of straws in the ground,” Swain said. “But you’d need multiple years like this in a row to really move the needle on recharging those aquifers.”

In California, there are nearly 200 Monitoring sites that show a range from complete recovery to partial recovery of the earth’s natural resources.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/us/atmospheric-river-winter-california-drought-climate/index.html

What will we have to do next year if we don’t have much control over the floods?” said Gleick, a climate scientist, and CNN

“We have to let our rivers flow differently, and let the rivers flood a little more and recharge our groundwater in wet seasons,” Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, previously told CNN. “Instead of thinking we can control all floods, we have to learn to live with them.”

The model forecast information we have and the other climate indicators are likely to shut off as we go into the early part of April. There will be a break because normal precipitation in California goes toward zero quite quickly at that point.